Florence Price’s The Oak
This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/xqgTVyIby-o The American composer Florence Price (1887–1953) was the first African American woman composer to have a work performed by a major symphony orchestra. Her Symphony in e minor, which won first prize in the Wanamaker Foundation Awards in 1932, received its premiere in 1933 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Although she won many awards and did have some works published and performed in her lifetime, she still faced discrimination and was unable to get most of her compositions performed. She once wrote to Serge Koussevitzky, "Unfortunately, the work of a woman composer is preconceived by many to be light, frothy, lacking in depth, logic, and virility. Add to that the incident of race—I have Colored blood in my veins—and you will understand some of the difficulties that confront one in such a position....