The Life and Music of Florence Price

Today I’ve got a pretty special show for you. It’s set up in two
parts, with the first part featuring an interview, and the second
part will be a more typical Sticky Notes analysis of a specific
piece. Why did I set up the show this way this week? Well, I had
the opportunity a few months ago to work with an extraordinary
scholar and musician, Dr. Samantha Ege, who is the Lord Crewe
Junior Research Fellow in Music at Lincoln College, University of
Oxford,  and is also one of the foremost scholars on the
music of Florence Price.


Florence Price is a composer who has been receiving a lot of
attention over the last 5-7 years. As the first African American
woman to have a major piece performed an orchestra, her first
symphony was performed in 1933 by the Chicago Symphony, Price has
become one of the most prominent figures in the revival of music
written by Black composers as orchestras and performers not only
in the US but all over the world attempt to diversify their
programming. Price is part of a group of composers from the early
twentieth century who were the first nationally successful Black
composers. This group included luminaries such as William Grant
Stiill, William Levi Dawson, and Nathaniel Dett, among others,
and all of these composers have had their works rediscovered
during this period, a truly exciting development that has brought
a lot of neglected music back onto the concert stage. I’ve wanted
to do a show devoted to Florence Price for a while, but when I
got the chance to perform Florence Price’s Piano Concerto in One
Movement with Dr. Ege, I knew I had to ask her to come on the
show to tell the incredible story of this wonderful American
composer. So the first part of the show is devoted to an
interview with Dr. Ege going through Price’s background and
talking about her writing style and approach to music. This was
such a fun interview - Dr. Ege is a great teacher and I learned a
ton about Price that I didn’t know about beforehand. The second
part of the show will be an analysis of one of Price’s most
rarely played, but in my opinion, one of her best, orchestral
works, Ethiopia’s Shadow in America. Join us!