Florence Price

Biography Early life and education Florence Beatrice Smith was born to Florence (Gulliver) and James H. Smith on April 9, 1887 or 1888, in Little Rock, Arkansas, one of three children in a mixed-race family. Despite racial issues of the era, her family was well respected and did well within their community. She took piano lessons from her mother at the age of three and gave her first piano performance at the age of four; her first composition is published at the age of 11.

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

Career In 1910, Smith returned to Arkansas, where she taught briefly before moving to Atlanta, Georgia. There she became the head of the music department of Clark University, a historically Black college which is now called “Clark Atlanta University”. In 1912, she married Thomas J. Price, a lawyer. She gave up her teaching position and moved back to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he had his practice and had two daughters.

There Florence Price began a new and fulfilling period in her composition career; she was part of the Chicago Black Renaissance. She studied composition, orchestration, and organ with the leading teachers in the city, including Arthur Olaf Andersen, Carl Busch, Wesley La Violette, and Leo Sowerby. She published four pieces for piano in 1928. While in Chicago, Price was at various times enrolled at the Chicago Musical College, Chicago Teacher's College, University of Chicago, and American Conservatory of Music, studying languages and liberal arts subjects as well as music.

In 1931, financial struggles and abuse by her husband resulted in Price getting a divorce at age 44. She became a single mother to her two daughters. To make ends meet, she worked as an organist for silent film screenings and composed songs for radio ads under a pen name. During this time, Price lived with friends. She eventually moved in with her student and friend, Margaret Bonds, also a Black pianist and composer. This friendship connected Price with writer Langston Hughes and contralto Marian Anderson, both prominent figures in the art world who aided in Price's future success as a composer. (Bonds came in first place in the song category, with a song entitled "Sea Ghost".) Early in 1933 leading Arts advocate Maude Roberts George, president of the Chicago Music Association, music critic of The Chicago Defender and eventual national president of the National Association of Negro Musicians, paid $250 (about $5,093 in 2021 dollars) for Price's First Symphony to be included in a program devoted to "The Negro in Music", with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Frederick Stock, as part of the Century of Progress World's Fair. Although this concert, like the Fair in general, was unmistakably tainted by the racism that characterized Chicago and the U.S. in general in the 1930s, George's underwriting made Price the first African-American woman to have her music played by a major U.S. orchestra.

During the 1930s, a number of Price's other orchestral works were played by the Works Progress Administration Symphony Orchestra of Detroit and the Women's Symphony Orchestra of Chicago. On October 12, 1934, the Women's Symphony Orchestra of Chicago, a well known orchestra which uplifted women composers and performers, performed the Concerto. This began a long term association between the orchestra and Price. This partnership helped Price to gain recognition, and her Concerto in D minor would go on to be performed by other major symphonies within her lifetime, including the Chicago symphony and the Michigan Works Progress Administration Orchestra.

In 1949, 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.

Personal life In 1912, Price married prominent Arkansas attorney Thomas J. Price (also known as John Gray Lucas) The Price children were raised in Chicago.

Florence Price divorced Thomas Price in January 1931, and on February 14, 1931, she married the widower Pusey Dell Arnett (1875–1957), an insurance agent and former baseball player for the Chicago Unions some thirteen years her senior. She and Arnett were separated by April 1934; they apparently never divorced.

On June 3, 1953, Price died from a stroke in Chicago, Illinois, at the age of 66. Price Elementary's student body was predominately African-American. The school operated from 1964 until the school district decided to phase it out in 2011 due to poor academic performance, which ultimately led to its closing in 2013. The school housed a piano owned by Price. The school building currently houses a local church as of 2019. In February 2019, The University of Arkansas Honors College held a concert honoring Price. 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, Price was the BBC Radio 3's Composer of the Week.

Following her death, much of her work was overshadowed as new musical styles emerged that fit the changing tastes of modern society. According to some critics, Florence Price’s Symphony in E minor, performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1933, represented a pivotal moment in American classical music, breaking the race barrier for African American composers in major symphonic venues. Price’s achievement paved the way for greater representation, acceptance, and visibility of African American artistry within the classical music tradition, expanding opportunities for artists who had previously faced systemic exclusion from mainstream orchestras and concert halls.

Some of her work was lost, but as more African-American and female composers gained attention for their works, so did Price. In 2001, the Women's Philharmonic created an album of some of her work. In 2011, pianist Karen Walwyn and The New Black Repertory Ensemble performed Price's Concerto in One Movement and Symphony in E minor.

In February 2025, a crater on the planet Mercury was named in her honor. In that same month, pianist Michelle Cann and soprano Karen Slack won best classical solo vocal album at the 2025 Grammys for their recording Beyond The Years: Unpublished Songs Of Florence Price.

On January 31, 2026, My Name is Florence, had its world premiere in St. Paul, Minnesota. A Minnesota Opera New Works Initiative production, it is a collaboration between librettist Harrison David Rivers and composer B.E. Boykin. It "presents vignettes from Price’s life that bring into focus the impact of family, legacy, and the transformative power of a seat at the piano." These consisted of dozens of her scores, including her two violin concertos and her fourth symphony. As Alex Ross stated in The New Yorker in February 2018, "not only did Price fail to enter the canon; a large quantity of her music came perilously close to obliteration. That run-down house in St. Anne is a potent symbol of how a country can forget its cultural history." Three settings of her work Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight were rediscovered in 2009; a setting for orchestra, organ, chorus, and soloists was premiered on April 12, 2019, by the Du Bois Orchestra and Lyricora Chamber Choir in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In November 2018, the music publisher G. Schirmer announced that it had acquired the exclusive worldwide rights to Florence Price's complete catalog. In 2021, classical pianist Lara Downes initiated a project, Rising Sun Music, to draw attention to the influence of composers from a diversity of backgrounds upon American Classical music, assisted by producers such as Adam Abeshouse, to release newly recorded works of composers such as Price and Harry Burleigh, whose importance often has been lost in historical accounts of the development in the field.

With the 2022 installment in the Catalyst Quartet's ongoing Uncovered series focusing on the music of Black composers comes nearly two hours' worth of Price's chamber music. "The most substantial piece, Price's A-minor Quintet for Piano and Strings got its first recording just last year, courtesy of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective. Like that one, this performance impresses for its technical and expressive excellence: everything's beautifully balanced and comes to life just as it should." Also from artsfuse.org's Jonathan Blumhofer: "Taken together, this is an album that's at once musically significant but, more than that, thoroughly enjoyable. How tragic that, largely on account of her race and gender, Price's music was almost erased. Yet how happy it is that revivals do happen – and how exciting that, thanks to the advocacy of groups like the Catalysts and musicians like [Michelle] Cann, we're seeing a deserving composer finally taking her place in the American canon."

Reception Price was well received during her time, and she was particularly celebrated in Chicago. However, even her positive reviews were influenced by the common belief of the time that many women were performers, and a woman composer was a novelty. As a result, several of Price's reviews focused more on her performing abilities than her compositional skills.

She was cognizant of these issues. When writing to a composer she admired, Price prefaced her work with, "I have two handicaps - those of sex and race." She addressed these facts upfront in order to request a review of her work that was free of sexism or racism. Despite these challenges, Price received praise for the blending of both her traditional western education and African American culture in her music, and was seen as a pioneer for both her gender and race.

Florence Price’s rediscovery in the twenty-first century has led to a major reevaluation of her importance in American classical music. Scholars and performers have emphasized how she blended African American musical traditions—such as spirituals and dance rhythms—with European symphonic forms, creating a uniquely American sound. Her revival has inspired new performances and recordings by orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Minnesota Orchestra. Contemporary composers, including Jessie Montgomery and Valerie Coleman, have cited Price as an influence for the way she integrated themes of race, heritage, and spirituality into classical music. Her renewed recognition has also prompted broader conversations about equity and representation in concert programming and the historical exclusion of women and Black composers from the Western classical canon. Price’s legacy continues to shape how audiences and institutions understand the diversity of American music history.

Works

Composition style Even though her training was steeped in European tradition, Price's music is in an American idiom. (This claim is complicated by the fact that Dvořák in turn was heavily influenced by African-American spirituals. ) As a Christian, she frequently used the music of the African-American church as material for her arrangements. At the urging of her mentor, George Whitefield Chadwick, Price began to incorporate elements of African-American spirituals, emphasizing the rhythm and syncopation of the spirituals rather than just using the text. The melody in her first symphony was inspired by African-American spirituals, yet solidly rooted in instrumental writing. Compared with Dvorak's 9th symphony, the third movement is titled Juba Dance. This antebellum folk dance had already inspired European art music composers in its later manifestation the cakewalk, such as Debussy's "Golliwogg's Cakewalk" in Children's Corner (1908). Symphony No. 1 in E minor (1931–33); First Prize in the Rodman Wanamaker Competition, 1932 Symphony No. 2 in G minor (c. 1935, presumed lost Symphony No. 4 in D minor (1945) Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major (1939) Mississippi River Suite (1934); although labelled as a "suite", the work is cast in one continuous large-scale movement, in which several famous Mississippi river songs are quoted, such as "Go Down, Moses", "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" and "Deep River". Chicago Suite (date unknown) Colonial Dance Symphony (date unknown) Concert Overture No. 1 (date unknown); based on the spiritual "Sinner, Please Don't Let This Harvest Pass" Concert Overture No. 2 (1943); based on three spirituals ("Go Down, Moses", "Ev'ry Time I Feel the Spirit", "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen") The Oak, tone poem (1943); Songs of the Oak, tone poem (1943); Suite of Negro Dances (performed in 1951; orchestral version of the Three Little Negro Dances for piano, 1933; ); also referred to as Suite of Dances Suite for Strings, commissioned 1951 by Sir John Barbirolli for the Halle Orchestra and reportedly performed, but lost (or related to Suite of Dances) Dances in the Canebrakes (orchestral version of the piano work, 1953)

Choral

"The Moon Bridge" (Mary Rolofson Gamble), SSA, pf (1930); in Florence B. Price: Two Moon Songs for Women's Chorus and Piano, ed. John Michael Cooper (Fayetteville, AR: ClarNan Editions, 2025) "The New Moon" (Follen), SSAA, pf duet (one kbd, 4 hnds) (1930), in Florence B. Price: Two Moon Songs for Women's Chorus and Piano, ed. John Michael Cooper (Fayetteville, AR: ClarNan Editions, 2025) "The Wind and the Sea" (P. L. Dunbar), SSAATTBB, pf, str qt, 1934; "Ode to Man" (Curtis W. Reese, Sr), SATB, org, pf (1944) "Night" (Bessie Mayle), SSA, pf (1945) "Witch of the Meadow" (Gamble), SSA (1947); "Sea Gulls", female chorus, fl, cl, vn, va, vc, pf, by 1951; "Nature's Magic" (Gamble), SSA (1953); "Song for Snow" (E. Coatsworth), SATB (1957); "Abraham Lincoln walks at midnight" (V. Lindsay), 2 versions: first version for SATB soli, ch, orch, org (March–June 1939) (New York: G. Schirmer, 2019); revised version for SATB soli, ch, pf (June 1939-December 1941), ed. John Michael Cooper (Fayetteville, AR: ClarNan Editions, 2025) "After the 1st and 6th Commandments", SATB; "Communion Service", F, SATB, org; "Nod" (W. de la Mare), TTBB; Resignation (Price), SATB; "Song of Hope" (Price); "Spring Journey", SSA, str qt

Solo vocal (art songs and spirituals, all with piano)

"Don't You Tell Me No" (Price) (between 1931 and 1934) "Brown Arms (To Mother)" (Owens) (1931 or 1932), in Florence B. Price: Seven Songs on Texts of African American Poets, ed. John Michael Cooper (Fayetteville, AR: ClarNan, 2024). "Dreamin' Town" (Dunbar), 1934 4 Songs, B-Bar, 1935 "My Dream" (Hughes), 1935 Four Negro Songs (Dunbar), March 20–21, 1935, in Seven Songs on Texts of African American Poets, ed. John Michael Cooper (Fayetteville, AR: ClarNan, 2024). 1. Easy-goin', 2. Summah Night, 3. Dat's My Gal, or The Photograph, 4. Goo'-bye, Jinks. "Four Songs" from The Weary Blues (Hughes) (April 26, 1935): "My Dream", "Songs to the Dark Virgin", "Ardella", "Dream Ships". " [Note: The Weary Blues here refers to the anthology volume, not the title poem itself.] "Dawn's Awakening" (J. J. Burke), 1936; "God Gives Me You" (Connelly) (ca. 1937), in Florence B. Price: Seventeen Art Songs and Spirituals, ed. John Michael Cooper (Fayetteville, AR: ClarNan, 2025) "Fantasy in Purple" (Hughes) (1940) "Life" (Dunbar) (1940) in Florence B. Price: Seventeen Art Songs and Spirituals, ed. John Michael Cooper (Fayetteville, AR: ClarNan, 2025) "After the Winter" (McKay) (1941) in Florence B. Price: Seventeen Art Songs and Spirituals, ed. John Michael Cooper (Fayetteville, AR: ClarNan, 2025) "Lethe" (Johnson) (1941) in Florence B. Price: Seventeen Art Songs and Spirituals, ed. John Michael Cooper (Fayetteville, AR: ClarNan, 2025) Monologue for the Working Class (Langston Hughes) (October 1941) "My Little Dreams (to the memory of my husband) (Johnson) (ca. 1942) in Florence B. Price: Seventeen Art Songs and Spirituals, ed. John Michael Cooper (Fayetteville, AR: ClarNan, 2025) "Feet o' Jesus" (Hughes) (1944) "Hold Fast to Dreams" (Hughes), 1945 Lullaby (For a Black Mother) (Hughes) (1945), in Florence B. Price: Seven Songs on Texts of African American Poets, ed. John Michael Cooper (Fayetteville, AR: ClarNan, 2024). "Night" (L. C. Wallace) (1946) "Out of the South Blew a Wind" (F.C. Woods) (1946) "Beyond the Years" (Dunbar) (ca. 1947), in Florence B. Price: Seventeen Art Songs and Spirituals, ed. John Michael Cooper (Fayetteville, AR: ClarNan, 2025) My Soul and I" (Tolson) (1947), in Florence B. Price: Seven Songs on Texts of African American Poets, ed. John Michael Cooper (Fayetteville, AR: ClarNan, 2024) "Before This Time another Year" (spiritual) (September 1948), in Florence B. Price: Seventeen Art Songs and Spirituals, ed. John Michael Cooper (Fayetteville, AR: ClarNan, 2025) "Rhapsody" (Braithwaite) (ca. 1948) in Florence B. Price: Seventeen Art Songs and Spirituals, ed. John Michael Cooper (Fayetteville, AR: ClarNan, 2025) "An April Day" (J. F. Cotter) (1949) "The Envious Wren" (A. and P. Carey) "Forever" (Dunbar) (1939) "The Glory of the Day was in her Face" (J. W. Johnson) (1935) "The Heart of a Woman" (G. D. Johnson), 1941 "Travel's End" (M. F. Hoisington), 1933 "Judgement Day" (Hughes). (Hughes) Fantasie [No. 1] in G Minor for Violin and Piano (1933) Piano Quintet in E minor (1936) Piano Quintet in A minor (1952) Five Folksongs in Counterpoint for String Quartet (1950) Fantasy [No. 2] in F-sharp Minor for Violin and Piano (1940) Pensive Mood (March 3, 1928) Fantasie nègre [No. 1] (E minor)(1929, as "Negro Fantasy"; rev. 1931); based on the spiritual "Sinner, please don't let this harvest pass" (original version premiered September 3, 1930, by Margaret Bonds at twelfth annual convention of National Association of Negro Musicians, Chicago). On a Quiet Lake (June 23, 1929) Waltz of the Spring Maid (ca. early 1930s) Fantasie nègre No. 3 in F minor (March 30, 1932) Fantasie nègre No. 4 in B minor (April 5, 1932 – [ca. 1937]) (4 versions) Song without Words in A Major (April 21, 1932) 3 Little Negro Dances (1933): Rabbit Foot, Hoe Cake, Ticklin' Toes. Also arranged for concert band (1939); for two pianos (1949); and for orchestra (before 1951) Tecumseh (published by Carl Fischer, New York, 1935) Scenes in Tin Can Alley (ca. 1937): "The Huckster" (October 1, 1928), "Children at Play", "Night" Down a Southern Lane (April 29, 1939) Joy in June (June 27, 1938) Rowing: Little Concert Waltz [?1930s]. Village Scenes (1942): "Church Spires in Moonlight", "A Shaded Lane", "The Park" Your Hands in Mine (1943) (originally titled Memory Lane) [Four Pieces for Piano Solo]: "Levee at Noontime – Barcarolle" (November 17, 1943); "Little Miss Perky" (November 17, 1943); "Smile, Smile!" (November 17, 1943); "Fairy Fun (or Fairies' Frolic)" [originally titled "Little Toe Dancer"] (November 17, 1943). Clouds [ca. 1940s] Cotton Dance (Presto) ([ca. 1940s]) Whim Wham (July 6, 1946) Placid Lake (July 17, 1947) Rock-a-bye (1947) [Six Piano Pieces] (November 11 and 12, 1947) To a Red Rose (1949) To a Brown Leaf (1949) Waltzing on a Sunbeam (ca. 1950 Until We Meet (1952) Two Traditional Negro Spirituals, 1 v, pf (1940): "I Am Bound for the Kingdom" and "I'm Workin' on My Buildin Her Concert Overture on Negro Spirituals, Symphony in E minor, and Negro Folksongs in Counterpoint for string quartet, all serve as excellent examples of her idiomatic work. "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?", pf (1942); "I am bound for the kingdom", 1v, pf (1948); "I'm workin' on my building", 1v, pf job at Florida "Heav'n bound soldier", male chorus, 1949 [2 arrs.];

Undated: "Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho" (arranged by Price, ca. 1940s–1950) "Peter, Go Ring dem Bells" (undated) "I couldn't hear nobody pray", SSAATTBB; "Save me, Lord, save me", 1v, pf; "Trouble done come my way", 1v, pf?12 other works, 1v, pf Manuscripts of approximately 40 songs in US-PHu (Philadelphia); other manuscripts in private collections and archives at the University of Arkansas and the University of Florida.

Works for organ

Adoration in The Organ Portfolio vol. 15/86 (December 1951), Dayton OH: Lorenz Publishing Co., 34–35. Andante, July 24, 1952 Andantino con espressione, 1929 Allegretto Cantilena March 10, 1951 Caprice Dainty Lass, by November 19, 1936 Echoes of a Prayer (by July 14, 1950) Festal March First Sonata for Organ, 1927 The Hour Glass [formerly Sandman]. paired with Retrospection as No. 1 Hour of Peace or Hour of Contentment or Gentle Heart, November 16, 1951 In Quiet Mood [formerly Evening and then Impromptu], New York: Galaxy Music Corp, 1951 (dated August 7, 1941) Little Melody Little Pastorale Offertory in The Organ Portfolio vol. 17/130 (1953). Dayton OH: Lorenz Publishing Co., 1953 O Solemn Thought, by July 14, 1950 Passacaglia and Fugue, January 1927 A Pleasant Thought, December 10, 1951 Prelude and Fantasie, by 1942 Retrospection [formerly An Elf on a Moonbeam], paired with The Hour Glass as No. 2 Steal Away to Jesus, by November 19, 1936 Suite No. 1, by April 6, 1942 Memory Mist (1949) " Althea Waites Cambria Records 1993

Gasparo Records 1993

Cambria Records

Calcante CAL 014

Zina Schiff; violin; Cameron Grant; piano 4-Tay Inc. 4TAY-CD-4005 2000

Musician's Showcase 2001 Florence Price: The Oak; Mississippi River Suite; and Symphony No. 3 / Women's Philharmonic Koch International Classics 2006

Cambria Records 2011 Florence B. Price: Concerto in One Movement and Symphony in E minor Albany TROY1295 2013

Michael Lewin; piano Sono Luminus DSL-92168

Florence B. Price: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 (D major – 1939) and 2 (D minor – 1952) Albany TROY1706 Florence B. Price: Symphonies Nos. 1 (E minor – 1932) and 4 (D minor – 1945) Fort Smith Symphony; John Jeter Naxos American Classics

Perspectives; Delos Music DE 3547 Florence B. Price: Dances in the Canebrakes (Nimble Feet / Tropical Noon / Silk Hat and Walking Cane) arranged by William Grant Still (1895–1978) for orchestra / Chicago Sinfonietta; Mei-Ann Chen Album Project W – Works by Woman Composers Cedille Records

Cole Burger; piano MSR Classics

BBC Music Magazine BBCMM454 Pioneers: Piano Works by Female Composers (Piano Sonata in E minor: II. Andante) Hiroko Ishimoto; piano Grand Piano; HNH International GP844

Deutsche Grammophon American Quintets: Amy Beach; Florence Price; Samuel Barber (Quintet; c. 1935) Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective Chandos CHAN 20224 Florence Beatrice Price: Symphony No. 3 in C minor (1940); The Mississippi River (1934); Ethiopia's Shadow in America (1932) ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra; John Jeter Naxos 8 559897

ACA Digital Recordings; Inc. CM 20132 2022

Azica Records 2023 University of Arkansas Schola Cantorum; Dr. Stephen Caldwell Hill Records 2024

Azica Records 2025 Florence Beatrice Price: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 and 2, Piano Concerto in One Movement, Dances in the Canebreaks Fanny Clamagirand, violin); Han Chen, piano; Malmö Opera Orchestra, cond. John Jeter Naxos 8.559952

Adaptations

Orchestral works

Adoration (1951/2024), arranged for orchestra by Kai Johannes Polzhofer Rainbow Waltz : The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra announced that it had performed an orchestral arrangement of its Rainbow Waltz, arranged by Wolfgang Dörner. However, this arrangement raises questions due to its lack of similarities with the original piano piece, leaving unanswered questions raised by the publishers who hold the rights to the score.