Full Name: Florence Beatrice Price (née Smith)
Profession: Composer and Music Teacher
Biography: Florence Price became the first African-American female composer to have a symphonic work performed by a major American orchestra, when the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed her "Symphony in e" in 1933.
She began composing as a teenager, graduated as valedictorian of her Little Rock, Arkansas high school, and received formal training at the New England Conservatory, earning degrees in organ performance and piano instruction in 1906.
As a black woman in the South, she ran into career roadblocks, and relocated to Chicago in 1927. There she established herself as a teacher and musician, and won awards for composition.
She composed over 300 works, which were performed by several major orchestras, and in concerts by Marian Anderson.
She died unexpectedly, and over 50 years later boxes of her manuscripts thought lost were discovered during renovations of her former summer cottage, leading to a resurgence of interest in her work. In 2022, a recording of her 1st and 3rd symphonies won a Grammy Award.
Born: April 9, 1888
Birthplace: Little Rock, Arkansas, USA
Generation: Lost Generation
Star Sign: Aries
Biographies and Sources
- Florence Beatrice Smith Price (1887–1953) - Encyclopedia of Arkansas
Antonio Vivaldi
Charles Strouse
Robert Schumann
Arthur Wesley Dow
Brigitte Macron
Horace Mann