SCENES IN TIN CAN ALLEY
PIANO MUSIC OF FLORENCE PRICE
JOSH TATSUO CULLEN
“Scenes in Tin Can Alley” released June 3, 2022 on Blue Griffin Records
“Cullen performed with an astounding mixture of coolness and intensity… with an unfailing sense of rhythm and drive” — Stuttgarter Zeitung
The music of Florence Price (1887 – 1953)
is enjoying a renaissance. The 2009 discovery of a trove of manuscripts
in the African-American composer’s abandoned summer home generated a
lot of excitement and renewed interest in her life and work. The pianist Josh Tatsuo Cullen
has recorded an entire album of her evocatively-titled music for solo
piano, all specifically from that 2009 discovery. "Scenes in Tin Can
Alley: Piano Music of Florence Price" (Blue Griffin BGR615) is released
on June 3, 2022. The album includes the first commercial recording of several of these compositions, including Scenes in Tin Can Alley, Thumbnail Sketches of a Day in the Life of a Washerwoman, Village Scenes, and Cotton Dance.
In the liner notes, Cullen writes:
I
chose these works not only because they deserve to be heard, but
because they spoke to me as an artist. As a person of mixed Japanese and
European descent, I feel a strong connection to Price’s desire to honor
and elevate the marginalized people of her own mixed-race heritage
personified in Scenes in Tin Can Alley, Thumbnail Sketches of a Day in the Life of a Washerwoman, and Three Miniature Portraits of Uncle Ned.
|
|
The composer Florence Price
(1887– 1953) is the first African-American woman to have an orchestral
piece played by a major American orchestra: the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed her Symphony in E Minor in 1933. Born in Little Rock, Ark., and educated at the New England Conservatory, her career
blossomed after she moved to Chicago in 1927. Her music received
widespread recognition beginning in the 1930s. Price wrote over 300
works, and her arrangements of spirituals were often performed by Marian
Anderson, Leontyne Price and other singers.
| |
No comments:
Post a Comment