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Oct. 31, 2019
The
International Florence Price Festival is partnering with the University
of Maryland School of Music (SOM) to bring together performers,
scholars and advocates from around the world to celebrate the life and
legacy of the late African American composer Florence Price.
The
inaugural Price Fest will be held August 20-23, 2020, at the University
of Maryland and in the Washington, D.C. region. The festival will
feature lectures and panels on the significance of Price and her
contemporaries, as well as recitals of her music.
It is the first annual classical music festival in the United States named after a woman of color.
“Classical
music festivals named after a composer are almost always named after
European men like Bach, Mozart and Beethoven,” said festival president
and tenor Marquese Carter. “It is significant to be able to offer a
festival named after an American woman of color.”
Born
in Arkansas in 1887, Price was the first African American woman
composer to have a composition performed by a major American orchestra
when the Chicago Symphony performed her Symphony No. 1 in 1933 at the
Chicago World’s Fair.
While
scholarship and performances surrounding her work continued after her
death in 1953, an expansion of popular interest began in 2009, when a
large number of her manuscripts previously believed to be lost were
discovered in a cabin in St. Anne, Illinois. Interest has continued to
accelerate in recent years due to the release of published editions and
premiere recordings of her fourth symphony and two violin concertos.
The
International Florence Price Festival has assembled a number of leading
Price performers, scholars and advocates on its board of directors and
advisory committee, including Marquese Carter, Douglas Shadle, A. Kori
Hill, Patrick Dailey, Er-Gene Kahng, John Jeter, Samantha Ege and Jordan
Randall Smith. The forthcoming festival line-up will include a diverse
range of performers and composers.
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