Full Description
Active in Chicago during the first half of the twentieth century, Florence B. Price was an African American composer, pianist, organist and music teacher, and a central figure in the first generation of Black composers of art music in the US. Price's aesthetic engaged with Black music of the enslavement period, and her gendered racial identity deserves careful consideration, while her geography and era distinguish her trajectory from those of her European and Anglo-American counterparts. This Companion introduces readers to archives and sources on Price, the style and genre of her music, and her artistic communities, and reception. It contextualizes Price's music and life in relation to the sociocultural climate of her time, the Black classical scene to which she belonged, and the compositional aesthetics that informed her craft. It offers an alternative view of music's capacity to uplift and amplify underrepresented voices.
Contents
List of Figures; List of Tables; List of Musical Examples; List of Contributors; Acknowledgments; Chronology; Foreword Naomi André; Introduction Samantha Ege and Alexandra Kori Hill; Part I. Archives and Sources: 1. Listening for Florence 'Bea' Price Samantha Ege; 2. Hidden figures and Black music historiography: Florence Price's story and Rae Linda Brown's scholarship Carlene J. Brown and C. E. Aaron; 3. Price and the Black concert tradition in the United States Louise Toppin; Part II. Genre and Style: 4. New analytical approaches for Florence Price scholarship Jane Forner and Ellie M. Hisama; 5. Reflections of Price in the mirror of her art songs Minnita Daniel-Cox; 6. The concert spirituals: price as Griot-Composer Elektra V. Carter; 7. The solo keyboard works Gwynne Kuhner Brown and Joe Williams; 8. Price and the violin: between virtuosity and vernacularity R. Larry Todd and Katharina Uhde; 9. Concertos and chamber works: The African American idiom in texture and form Alexandra Kori Hill; 10. Symphonies to tone poems Douglas W. Shadle; Part III. Community and Reception: 11. The influence of Harry T. Burleigh Rae Linda Brown; 12. Black feminist bonds between Florence Price, Marian Anderson, and Margaret Bonds: making a way out of no way Elizabeth Durrant; 13. The critical reception of Florence Price Lucy Caplan; 14. When things don't fall apart: the myth of Black cultural rediscovery and the afterlife of Florence Price Tammy L. Kernodle; Select Bibliography; Select Discography.
