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Celebrating two hundred and fifty years of music by women |
Price was the first African-American woman to win widespread recognition
as a symphonic composer, rising to prominence in the 1930s. She studied
at the New England Conservatory in Boston, and privately with George
Chadwick. Her family moved to Chicago in 1927 to escape the increasing
racial oppression in the South. She started winning awards for her
composition in the 1920s, and in 1933 became the first African-American
woman to have an orchestral work performed by a major American orchestra
when the Chicago SO premiered her Symphony in E minor. Her Songs to
the Dark Virgin was hailed by the Chicago Daily News as "one of
the greatest immediate successes ever won by an American song." Her
musical language is in keeping with the romantic nationalist style of
the 1920s-40s, while also reflecting the influence of her heritage. She
incorporates spirituals and characteristic dance music within classical
forms, at times using call-and-response techniques and Juba dance
rhythms. She bought colouful harmonies and exotic modulations into her
instrumental and vocal writing.Click on these works for more details below:
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Symphony No 1 in E minor. 1931-2
3 fl, 2 ob, 2 cl, 2 bn, 4 hn, 3 tpt, 3 tbn, tb, timp, pers, celesta, stgs. 27 mins
This Symphony won Price the first prize in the Wanamaker Competition in 1932 and brought her national recognition. It is in an expressive late romantic idiom. The third movement is called 'Juba' and uses rhythmic patterns of this old dance which involved syncopated clapping and thigh-slapping.
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Symphony No 3 in C minor. 1940
4 fl, 3 ob, 3 cl, 2 bn, 4 hn, 3 tpt, 3 tbn, tb, timp, 4 perc, celesta, stgs. 30 mins
Originally premiered in Detroit in 1940, it was only heard again in modern times in 1998, when it was performed at the Northern Arizona University. It is a splendid work, which should enter the repertoire. It has recently been recorded by the Women's Philharmonic, on a CD with 'The Oak', and 'The Mississippi River'.
Parts available through Rae Linda Brown (e-mail: rlbrown@uci.edu)
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