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The Orchestra's 2021/22 season features a number of rising star artists, and pianist Michelle Cann has certainly earned her place among them. It was waiting for the right spark, waiting for Florence Price’s music to bring my passion back to life."Michelle Cann.was a compelling, sparkling virtuoso, bringing riveting work to life in its first New York performance" ( Boston Musical Intelligencer). As it turns out it wasn’t extinct, just dormant. 1 in E Minor, I thought my love for classical music had died long ago.
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Until I heard the music of Florence Price, specifically her Symphony No. Florence Price’s music makes me think that I don’t have to choose between my Mum’s blackness and my Dad’s whiteness, or even that my own unique blend is in question. The two sides of my identity are not in dissonance. When I listen to Florence Price’s music it’s not like that. It’s an ongoing struggle and can be pretty exhausting. Not only that but I’m requested to explain my expression of the various parts of my heritage. Even now I’m still constantly demanded to justify and defend my existence. My identity has always been called into question. Growing up in England with a black mother and a white father I always felt like there were two halves constantly at odds within me.
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I’m mixed race, just like Florence, and I’m English. I heard Price’s Symphony in E Minor for the first time in March 2018 and for the first time in my life I felt whole. I have a very personal connection with her, her music and her story. There is a reason, apart from all the others already listed that show how incredible she was.
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Florence Price continues to inspire people everywhere, particularly black and mixed race women.Īnyone who follows me on social media and listens to my show knows I’m a teeny bit obsessed with Florence Price. Pianist Samantha Ege is completing hers as we speak as well as being part of the growing group of people championing Florence Price’s music across the globe. Well known singer Leontyne Price (no relation) performed her work in the 70’s, several dissertations have been written about her by Rae Linda Brown, Marquese Carter and Erin Hobbs amongst others. Price Elementary School in 1964 in Chicago were both named in her honour. Price Study Guild in 1940 and the Florence B. She was also inducted into the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and may have been one of the first women of colour in the organisation.įlorence was recognised and honoured for her achievements, both during her life and after her death in 1953. Not only the 1st African American woman to write a symphony, Florence Price was the first African-American member of the Chicago Club of Women Organists and Musician’s Club Of Women. I like to imagine that her music is a metaphor for herself, a mixed race woman surrounded by white people, particularly the classical music world she inhabited.įlorence Price was a trailblazer for black and mixed race women. It’s more like representing this constant flow of artistry that started in Africa, developed in America, merging with European classical forms in the present and then looking forward to the future as well. It wasn’t about expressing traditions of ancestors long gone, Florence’s music acknowledges the past in a way that is not sentimental or nostalgic. In all of these different forms Florence was never merely reproducing folk music. 3, and sometimes it’s arrangements of spirituals themselves, in the case of some of her art songs such as My Souls Been Anchored to the Lord. Sometimes it’s original music with similar structures to African music such as Symphony No. Some of it is expressed with little quotations here and there in the music like her piano masterpiece Fantasie Negre. Her music is influenced by African American spirituals that she grew up with and heard in church. Florence Price displays both sides of her heritage and experience in her music.