Thursday, January 31, 2019

NPR.org & WQXR.org: Florence Price Symphonies 1 & 4 CD one of January's best releases


National Public Radio

The 10 Best Albums We Heard In January

January 31, 2019

Robin Hilton

Every December, the NPR Music team peruses 11 months' worth of albums and songs and crams its collective reflections and critical assessments into a handful of big lists. This year we've decided to dissect the torrent of new releases as they're happening and share a list of the most notable albums and songs from each month.

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Other highlights on our multi-genre list include Florence Price, a pioneering African American composer in the Jim Crow era...



WQXR Radio

The Best Classical New Releases of January 2019  

Fort Smith Symphony
John Jeter, conductor

On June 15, 1933, Florence Price’s Symphony No. 1 in E Minor was premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the first composition by a female African-American composer to be performed by a major American ensemble. The Chicago Daily News praised it as “a faultless work … worthy of a place in the regular symphonic repertory,” but the symphony — which draws inspiration from the contoured themes of Negro spirituals and the jaunty syncopations of “juba,” a form of slave dance — never gained a foothold. John Jeter and the Fort Smith Symphony, based in Price’s home state of Arkansas, pair their vivacious reading of Price’s early masterpiece with the premiere recording of her Symphony No. 4 in D Minor, whose score was assumed lost until 2009. Available on Arkivmusic.

https://www.wqxr.org/story/best-classical-new-releases-january-2019/

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