What’s on the program for your local performing arts organization? The Classics a Day team wants to know! For the month of September, you’re invited to post a work that your local symphony, chamber music ensemble, or choral society will be performing this fall. There’s a lot of great music-making going on. Let’s share […]
Florence Price
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New York Youth Symphony Excel with Composers of Color
This release features music by three female African-American composers. Florence Price was active in the 1930s and is just now coming into her own. Valerie Coleman and Jessie Montgomery are contemporary composers, building on Price’s legacy. The New York Youth Symphony gives these works some fine performances. The players may be young, but their technique […]
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Violin Concertos by Black Composers Reissue adds Florence Price
This is more than an anniversary reissue. Cedille updates the release by including a new recording. When Rachel Barton Pine recorded these works in 1997, she was an explorer. The works — and even the names — of Black composers were virtually unknown. When it was released, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was the biggest name in the […]
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Florence Price Piano Music a Major Discovery
Florence Price’s music was mostly ignored when she composed it. Now, however, the works of this African-American artist are being reevaluated. And performed. And recorded. But it almost didn’t happen at all. Many of Price’s manuscripts were considered lost after her sudden death in 1953. In 2009, her abandoned summer home was under renovation. The […]
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#Classicsaday #BlackHistoryMonth 2022 Week 1
February is Black History Month, and a great opportunity to explore the music of black composers. That’s what the Classics a Day team felt, anyway. As always, I tried to find works and composers that I hadn’t shared before during #BlackHistoryMonth. Here are my posts for the first week. 02/01/22 Shawn Okpebholo – Two Black […]
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Florence Price Symphony No. 3 blends traditions
Florence Price wrote this about her third symphony, “No attempt has been made to project Negro music solely in the purely traditional manner.” In other words, her symphony wasn’t a collection of spirituals. Rather, it was her own original musical vision. And one that blended European symphonic and African-American musical traditions. This 1940 work has […]
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#ClassicsaDay #NAFTAclassics Week 4
The Classics a Day team once again made NAFTA Classics the theme for July. Two of the three countries in North America have significant holidays in the month — Canada Day (July 1), and Independence Day (July 4). As always with this theme, I simply alternated between Canadian, American, and Mexican composers. And the process […]
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American Quintets Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective Debut
There are plenty of quintets by American composers to choose from. But the three presented here by the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective hit that sweet spot for me. They’re all first-rate compositions, they’re not over-represented either in recordings or in concert, and they’re all played exceptionally well. The Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective is just that — a […]
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#ClassicsaDay #BlackHistoryMonth Week 2
The Classics a Day team has celebrated Balck composers before. This time around, I tried to avoid duplication with previous posts. It was easy to do. There is a lot of classical music by persons of color, both in the past as well as the present. A lot. Here are my posts for the second […]