Composer Spotlight: Florence Price

Florence Price was born on April 9, 1887, in Little Rock, Arkansas, into a musically supportive family.  Her mother was a music teacher, and her father was a dentist.  With her mother’s encouragement, Price pursued music seriously and went on to study at the New England Conservatory of Music, where she studied piano and organ.

By 1910, she had become the head of the music department at Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia.  In 1912, she married Thomas Price and returned to Little Rock.  However, escalating racial tensions during the Jim Crow era, including a lynching near her husband’s office, ultimately forced the family to leave Arkansas.  In 1927, they relocated to Chicago, a move that marked a turning point in her creative career.

In Chicago, Price continued her studies in composition and published four

piano pieces in 1928. Her most significant breakthrough came in 1933, when her Symphony No. 1 in E minor was premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, making her the first African American woman to have a symphonic work performed by a major U.S. orchestra.

Throughout her career, Price composed over 300 works, including orchestral music, piano pieces, art songs, and arrangements of spirituals. Some of her most well-known works include Adoration and Dances in the Canebrakes.

Although much of her music was overlooked for decades, her legacy experienced a major resurgence in 2009 when a collection of her manuscripts was discovered in her former summer home, leading to renewed performances and recognition of her work.

Florence Price died on June 3, 1953, in Chicago. Today, she is recognized as a pioneering American composer who combined Western classical traditions with African American musical heritage, leaving a lasting impact on orchestral music in the United States.