ModernismFlorence Price
Florence Price was born in Arkansas, in the United States.
Florence Price’s life
The big moments of this life, and what was happening in the world at the same time.
A life at a glance
- 1887👶 Birth
Born in Little Rock on 9 April (Florence Beatrice Smith)
- 1891🎩 Careerage 4
First piano performance at 4
- 1895🌍 Meanwhile
The Lumière brothers’ first cinema show
- 1899🎼 Workage 12
Publishes her first composition at 11
- 1903📚 Trainingage 16
Enters the New England Conservatory in Boston at 16
- 1910🎩 Careerage 23
Heads the music department at Clark University in Atlanta
- 1912❤️ Private lifeage 25
Marries the lawyer Thomas Price
- 1918🌍 Meanwhile
End of the First World War
- 1933🎼 Workage 46
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra plays her Symphony No. 1 — a historic first
- 1934🎼 Workage 47
Piano Concerto in One Movement
- 1939🏛️ Landmarkage 52
Marian Anderson sings her spiritual arrangement at the Lincoln Memorial
- 1939🌍 Meanwhile
The Second World War begins
- 1948🌍 Meanwhile
The long-playing record (LP) goes on sale
- 1953🕯️ Deathage 66
Dies in Chicago on 3 June
Listen to the music
Press the big button to listen. Close your eyes: how does it make you feel?
Florence Price’s music is in the public domain, but Wikimedia Commons does not yet offer a freely licensed recording of these works. The links below lead to scores and searches on Commons; as soon as a free recording is published, it can be added here.
Once upon a time…
Florence Price was born in Arkansas, in the United States. At that time Black and white people were not allowed to live together: this was segregation. Florence loved music: at four she gave her first concert!
She went to study in Boston, then became a teacher. But because of racist violence she had to flee with her family and settled in Chicago. To earn a living she played the organ for silent films at the cinema.
In 1933 a great orchestra played her symphony: the first time a symphony written by a Black woman was performed by a major American orchestra! In her music you can hear spirituals and African American dances.
Long forgotten, her music was rediscovered thanks to scores found in an old abandoned house.
Florence Price’s instruments
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