27 Facts About Florence Price

Florence Beatrice Price was an American classical composer, pianist, organist and music teacher.

Florence Price is noted as the first African-American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer, and the first to have a composition played by a major orchestra.

Florence Price composed over 300 works: four symphonies, four concertos, as well as choral works, art songs, chamber music and music for solo instruments.

Florence Price's father was the only African-American dentist in the city, and her mother was a music teacher who guided Florence's early musical training.

Florence Price gave her first piano performance at the age of four and had her first composition published at the age of 11.

Florence Price attended school at a Catholic convent, and in 1901, at age 14, she graduated as valedictorian of her class.

Florence Price graduated in 1906 with honors, and with both an artist diploma in organ and a teaching certificate.

Florence Price gave up her teaching position and moved back to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he had his practice and had two daughters.

Florence Price studied composition, orchestration, and organ with the leading teachers in the city, including Arthur Olaf Andersen, Carl Busch, Wesley La Violette, and Leo Sowerby.

In 1931, financial struggles and abuse by her husband resulted in Florence Price getting a divorce at age 44.

Florence Price became a single mother to her two daughters.

Florence Price eventually moved in with her student and friend, Margaret Bonds, a Black pianist and composer.

Florence Price won first prize with her Symphony in E minor, and third for her Piano Sonata, earning her a $500 prize.

In 1934, Florence Price represented her class at the Chicago Musical College, performing her Concerto in D minor for Piano and Orchestra as part of the 1934 commencement program.

Florence Price would go on to perform this Concerto at the National Association of Negro Musicians in Pittsburgh, gaining further critical praise from The Pittsburgh Press and the Pittsburgh Sun Telegraph.

In 1940, Florence Price was inducted into the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers for her work as a composer.

In 1949, Florence Price published two of her spiritual arrangements, "I Am Bound for the Kingdom", and "I'm Workin' on My Buildin", and dedicated them to Marian Anderson, who performed them on a regular basis.

In 1912, Price married prominent Arkansas attorney Thomas J Price upon returning to Arkansas from Atlanta.

Florence Price divorced Thomas Price in January 1931, and on February 14,1931, she married the widower Pusey Dell Arnett, an insurance agent and former baseball player for the Chicago Unions some thirteen years her senior.

On June 3,1953, Florence Price died from a stroke in Chicago, Illinois, at the age of 66.

In October 2019, the International Florence Price Festival announced that its inaugural gathering celebrating Price's music and legacy would take place at the University of Maryland School of Music in August 2020.

From January 4 to 8,2021, Florence Price was the BBC Radio 3's Composer of the Week.

In 2009, a substantial collection of her works and papers was found in an abandoned dilapidated house on the outskirts of St Anne, Illinois, which Florence Price had used as a summer home.

How tragic that, largely on account of her race and gender, Florence Price's music was almost erased.

Florence Price was well received during her time, and she was particularly celebrated in Chicago.

At the urging of her mentor George Whitefield Chadwick, Florence Price began to incorporate elements of African-American spirituals, emphasizing the rhythm and syncopation of the spirituals rather than just using the text.

Florence Price composed numerous works: four symphonies, four concertos, as well as choral works, art songs, and music for chamber and solo instruments, organ anthems, piano pieces, spiritual arrangements, a piano concerto, and two violin concertos.