Florence Price
Price, date unknown
Born	Florence Beatrice Smith (1887-04-09)April 9, 1887 Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S.
Died	June 3, 1953(1953-06-03) (aged 66) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Occupations	Musical composer pianist organist music teacher
Years active	1899–1952
Spouses	Thomas J. Price ​ ​ (m. 1912; div. 1931)​ [1] Pusey Dell Arnett ​ ​ (m. 1931; sep. 1934)​
Children	3
Signature

Florence Beatrice Price (néeSmith; April 9, 1887 – June 3, 1953) was an Americanclassicalcomposer,pianist,organist andmusic teacher.^[2] Born inLittle Rock, Arkansas, Price was educated at theNew England Conservatory of Music, and was active inChicago from 1927 until her death in 1953. Price is noted as the firstAfrican-American woman to be recognized as asymphonic composer, and the first to have a composition played by a majororchestra.^[3] Price composed over 300 works: foursymphonies, fourconcertos, as well as choral works,art songs,chamber music and music for solo instruments. In 2009, a substantial collection of her works and papers was found in her abandoned summer home.

Florence Beatrice Smith was born to Florence (Gulliver) and James H. Smith on April 9, 1887, inLittle Rock, Arkansas,^[4] one of three children in amixed-race family. Her father was the only African-American dentist in the city, and her mother was a music teacher who guided Florence's early musical training.^[5] Despite racial issues of the era, her family was well respected and did well within their community.^[6] She gave her first piano performance at the age of four and had her first composition published at the age of 11.^[7]: 34

She attended school at aCatholic convent, and in 1901, at age 14, she graduated asvaledictorian of her class.^[8] In 1902, after high school, she enrolled in theNew England Conservatory of Music inBoston, Massachusetts, with a double major in organ and piano teaching.^[8] Initially, shepassed as Mexican to avoid racial discrimination against African Americans, listing her hometown as "Pueblo, Mexico".^[7]: 54 At the Conservatory, she studied composition and counterpoint with composersGeorge Chadwick andFrederick Converse.^[3] Also while there, Smith wrote her first string trio and symphony. She graduated in 1906 with honors, and with both an artist diploma in organ and a teaching certificate.^[9]

In 1910, Smith returned toArkansas, where she taught briefly before moving toAtlanta, Georgia. There she became the head of the music department of what is nowClark Atlanta University, ahistorically Black college. In 1912, she married Thomas J. Price, a lawyer. She gave up her teaching position and moved back to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he had his practice and had two daughters.^[6] She could not find work in the by now racially segregated town.

After a series of racial incidents in Little Rock, particularly alynching of a Black man in 1927, the Price family decided to leave. Like many Black families living in theDeep South, they moved north in theGreat Migration to escapeJim Crow conditions, and settled inChicago, a major industrial city.^[7]: 54

According to her daughter, Florence really wanted to be a doctor but felt the difficulties of becoming a woman doctor at the time were too formidable. Instead, she became that even greater rarity—a woman composer of symphonies.^[10]

There Florence Price began a new and fulfilling period in her composition career; she was part of theChicago Black Renaissance. She studied composition, orchestration, and organ with the leading teachers in the city, includingArthur Olaf Andersen,Carl Busch,Wesley La Violette, andLeo Sowerby. She published four pieces for piano in 1928. While in Chicago, Price was at various times enrolled at theChicago Musical College, Chicago Teacher's College,University of Chicago, andAmerican Conservatory of Music, studying languages and liberal arts subjects as well as music.^[7]: 98

In 1930, an important early success occurred at the twelfth annual convention of the National Association of Negro Musicians (NANM), when pianist-composerMargaret Bonds premiered Price's Fantasie nègre [No. 1] (1929) in its original version titled "Negro Fantasy". Of this performance, Carl Ditton wrote for the Associated Negro Press:

The surprise of the evening was a most effective composition by Mrs. F. B. Price, entitled 'A Negro Phantasy', played by the talented Chicago pianiste, Margaret Bonds. The entire association [i.e., NANM] could well afford to recommend this number to all advanced pianists.^[11]

In 1931, financial struggles and abuse by her husband resulted in Price getting a divorce at age 44. She became a single mother to her two daughters. To make ends meet, she worked as an organist for silent film screenings and composed songs for radio ads under a pen name. During this time, Price lived with friends. She eventually moved in with her student and friend,Margaret Bonds, also a Black pianist and composer. This friendship connected Price with writerLangston Hughes and contraltoMarian Anderson, both prominent figures in the art world who aided in Price's future success as a composer.^[7]: 170 Together, Price and Bonds began to achieve national recognition for their compositions and performances.

In 1932, both Price and Bonds submitted compositions for the Wanamaker Foundation Awards. Price won first prize with herSymphony in E minor, and third for her Piano Sonata, earning her a $500 prize.^[12] (Bonds came in first place in the song category, with a song entitled "Sea Ghost".)Early in 1933 leading Arts advocateMaude Roberts George, president of the Chicago Music Association, music critic ofThe Chicago Defender and eventual national president of theNational Association of Negro Musicians, paid $250 (about $5,093 in 2021 dollars) for Price's First Symphony to be included in a program devoted to "The Negro in Music", with theChicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted byFrederick Stock, as part of theCentury of Progress World's Fair.^[13] Although this concert, like the Fair in general, was unmistakably tainted by the racism that characterized Chicago and the U.S. in general in the 1930s,^[14] George's underwriting made Price the first African-American woman to have her music played by a major U.S. orchestra.^{[12][15][16][17]} Later in that same season the Illinois Host House of the World's Fair devoted an entire program to Price and her music, a striking invitation given that Price had adopted Illinois as her home state only five years earlier.^{[7]: 149–50}

In 1934, Price represented her class at the Chicago Musical College, performing her Concerto in D minor for Piano and Orchestra as part of the 1934 commencement program. This performance was met with critical acclaim. She would go on to perform this Concerto at the National Association of Negro Musicians in Pittsburgh, gaining further critical praise fromThe Pittsburgh Press and thePittsburgh Sun Telegraph. TheTelegraph specifically praised Price's blending of her African American culture into her work, calling it "real American music."^[18]

During the 1930s, a number of Price's other orchestral works were played by theWorks Progress Administration Symphony Orchestra ofDetroit and theWomen's Symphony Orchestra of Chicago.^[19] On October 12, 1934, the Women's Symphony Orchestra of Chicago, a well known orchestra which uplifted women composers and performers, performed the Concerto. This began a long term association between the orchestra and Price. This partnership helped Price to gain recognition, and her Concerto in D minor would go on to be performed by other major symphonies within her lifetime, including the Chicago symphony and the Michigan Works Progress Administration Orchestra.^[18]

In 1940, Price was inducted into theAmerican Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers for her work as a composer.

In 1949, Price published two of her spiritual arrangements, "I Am Bound for the Kingdom", and "I'm Workin' on My Buildin'", and dedicated them toMarian Anderson, who performed them on a regular basis.^[20]

In 1912, Price married prominent Arkansas attorney Thomas J. Price (also known as John Gray Lucas)^[1][21][5] upon returning to Arkansas from Atlanta. Together, they had two daughters and a son: Florence (d. 1975), Edith (d. 1963), and Thomas Jr (d. 1920).^[22] The Price children were raised in Chicago.

Florence Price divorced Thomas Price in January 1931, and on February 14, 1931, she married the widower Pusey Dell Arnett (1875–1957), an insurance agent and former baseball player for theChicago Unions some thirteen years her senior. She and Arnett were separated by April 1934; they apparently never divorced.^[23]

On June 3, 1953, Price died from a stroke in Chicago, Illinois, at the age of 66.^[7]: 235

In 1964, theChicago Public Schools openedFlorence B. Price Elementary School (also known asPrice Lit & Writing Elementary School) at 4351 South Drexel Boulevard in theNorth Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois in her honor.^[24] Price Elementary's student body was predominately African-American. The school operated from 1964 until the school district decided to phase it out in 2011 due to poor academic performance, which ultimately led to its closing in 2013. The school housed a piano owned by Price. The school building currently houses a local church as of 2019.^[25] In February 2019, TheUniversity of Arkansas Honors College held a concert honoring Price.^[26][27] In October 2019, the International Florence Price Festival announced that its inaugural gathering celebrating Price's music and legacy would take place at theUniversity of Maryland School of Music in August 2020.^[28][29] From January 4 to 8, 2021, Price was theBBC Radio 3'sComposer of the Week.

Following her death, much of her work was overshadowed as new musical styles emerged that fit the changing tastes of modern society. According to some critics, Florence Price’s Symphony in E minor, performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1933, represented a pivotal moment in American classical music, breaking the race barrier for African American composers in major symphonic venues. Price’s achievement paved the way for greater representation, acceptance, and visibility of African American artistry within the classical music tradition, expanding opportunities for artists who had previously faced systemic exclusion from mainstream orchestras and concert halls.^[30]

Some of her work was lost, but as more African-American and female composers gained attention for their works, so did Price. In 2001, theWomen's Philharmonic created an album of some of her work.^[31] In 2011, pianistKaren Walwyn and The New Black Repertory Ensemble performed Price'sConcerto in One Movement andSymphony in E minor.^[32][33]

In February 2025, acrater on the planet Mercury was named in her honor.^[34]

In 2009, a substantial collection of her works and papers was found in an abandoned dilapidated house on the outskirts ofSt. Anne, Illinois, which Price had used as a summer home.^[35][36] These consisted of dozens of her scores, including her two violin concertos and her fourth symphony. AsAlex Ross stated inThe New Yorker in February 2018, "not only did Price fail to enter the canon; a large quantity of her music came perilously close to obliteration. That run-down house in St. Anne is a potent symbol of how a country can forget its cultural history."^[37] Three settings of her workAbraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight were rediscovered in 2009; a setting for orchestra, organ, chorus, and soloists was premiered on April 12, 2019, by theDu Bois Orchestra andLyricora Chamber Choir inCambridge, Massachusetts.^[38]

In November 2018, the music publisherG. Schirmer announced that it had acquired the exclusive worldwide rights to Florence Price's complete catalog.^[39][40]In 2021, classical pianistLara Downes initiated a project, Rising Sun Music, to draw attention to the influence of composers from a diversity of backgrounds upon American Classical music, assisted by producers such asAdam Abeshouse, to release newly recorded works of composers such as Price andHarry Burleigh, whose importance often has been lost in historical accounts of the development in the field.^[41]

With the 2022 installment in the Catalyst Quartet's ongoingUncovered series focusing on the music of Black composers comes nearly two hours' worth of Price's chamber music. "The most substantial piece, Price's A-minor Quintet for Piano and Strings got its first recording just last year, courtesy of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective. Like that one, this performance impresses for its technical and expressive excellence: everything's beautifully balanced and comes to life just as it should." Also from artsfuse.org's Jonathan Blumhofer: "Taken together, this is an album that's at once musically significant but, more than that, thoroughly enjoyable. How tragic that, largely on account of her race and gender, Price's music was almost erased. Yet how happy it is that revivals do happen – and how exciting that, thanks to the advocacy of groups like the Catalysts and musicians like [Michelle] Cann, we're seeing a deserving composer finally taking her place in the American canon."^[42]

Price was well received during her time, and she was particularly celebrated in Chicago. However, even her positive reviews were influenced by the common belief of the time that many women were performers, and a woman composer was a novelty. As a result, several of Price's reviews focused more on her performing abilities than her compositional skills.^[43]

She was cognizant of these issues. When writing to a composer she admired, Price prefaced her work with, "I have two handicaps - those of sex and race." She addressed these facts upfront in order to request a review of her work that was free of sexism or racism. Despite these challenges, Price received praise for the blending of both her traditional western education and African American culture in her music, and was seen as a pioneer for both her gender and race.^[44]

Florence Price’s rediscovery in the twenty-first century has led to a major reevaluation of her importance in American classical music. Scholars and performers have emphasized how she blended African American musical traditions—such as spirituals and dance rhythms—with European symphonic forms, creating a uniquely American sound. Her revival has inspired new performances and recordings by orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Minnesota Orchestra. Contemporary composers, including Jessie Montgomery and Valerie Coleman, have cited Price as an influence for the way she integrated themes of race, heritage, and spirituality into classical music. Her renewed recognition has also prompted broader conversations about equity and representation in concert programming and the historical exclusion of women and Black composers from the Western classical canon. Price’s legacy continues to shape how audiences and institutions understand the diversity of American music history.^[45][46]

Even though her training was steeped in European tradition, Price's music is in an American idiom.^[6] The strong influence of the composition style ofAntonín Dvořák is often noticeable, e.g., in her first violin concerto and more broadly in the two composers' lavish orchestrations of reworked folk melodies.^[47] (This claim is complicated by the fact that Dvořák in turn was heavily influenced byAfrican-American spirituals^[48].) As a Christian, she frequently used the music of theAfrican-American church as material for her arrangements. At the urging of her mentor George Whitefield Chadwick,^[49] Price began to incorporate elements of African-Americanspirituals, emphasizing the rhythm and syncopation of the spirituals rather than just using the text. The melody in her first symphony was inspired byAfrican-American spirituals but solidly rooted in instrumental writing. Compared with Dvorak's 9th symphony, the third movement is titled Juba Dance. This antebellum folk dance had already inspired European art music composers in its later manifestation thecakewalk, such asDebussy's "Golliwogg's Cakewalk" inChildren's Corner (1908).^[7]: 131

Florence Price composed numerous works: four symphonies, four concertos, as well as choral works, art songs, and music for chamber and solo instruments, organ anthems, piano pieces, spiritual arrangements, a piano concerto, and two violin concertos. In the program notes for her piano piece Three Little Negro Dances, Price wrote: "In all types of Negro music, rhythm is of preeminent importance. In the dance, it is a compelling, onward-sweeping force that tolerates no interruption... All phases of truly Negro activity—whether work or play, singing or praying—are more than apt to take on a rhythmic quality."^[50]

• Symphony No. 1 in E minor (1931–33); First Prize in theRodman Wanamaker Competition, 1932^[51]
• Symphony No. 2 in G minor (c. 1935, presumed lost^[51])
• Symphony No. 3 in C minor (1938–40)^[52]
• Symphony No. 4 in D minor (1945)^[51]

• Piano Concerto in D minor (in one movement)^[53]
• Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major (1939)^[51]
• Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor (1952)^[51]
• Rhapsody/Fantasie for piano and orchestra (date unknown, possibly incomplete)

• Ethiopia's Shadow in America (1929–32)^[54]
• Mississippi River Suite (1934); although labelled as a "suite", the work is cast in one continuous large-scale movement, in which several famous Mississippi river songs are quoted, such as "Go Down, Moses", "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" and "Deep River".
• Chicago Suite (date unknown)
• Colonial Dance Symphony (date unknown)
• Concert Overture No. 1 (date unknown); based on the spiritual "Sinner, Please Don't Let This Harvest Pass"^[55]
• Concert Overture No. 2 (1943); based on three spirituals ("Go Down, Moses", "Ev'ry Time I Feel the Spirit", "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen")^[56]
• The Oak, tone poem (1943);
• Songs of the Oak, tone poem (1943);
• Suite of Negro Dances (performed in 1951;^[57] orchestral version of theThree Little Negro Dances for piano, 1933;^[58]); also referred to asSuite of Dances
• Dances in the Canebrakes (orchestral version of the piano work, 1953)

• Andante con espressione (1929)^[59]
• String Quartet (No. 1) in G major (1929)^[69]
• Fantasie [No. 1] in G Minor for Violin and Piano (1933)^[59]
• String Quartet (No. 2) in A minor (published in 1935)^[70][71]
• Piano Quintet in E minor (1936)
• Piano Quintet in A minor (1952)^[72]
• Five Folksongs in Counterpoint for String Quartet (1950)^[73][74]
• Fantasy [No. 2] in F-sharp Minor for Violin and Piano (1940)^[60]
• Moods, for Flute, Clarinet and Piano (1953)
• Spring Journey, for 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass and piano

• "My soul's been anchored in de Lord", 1v, pf (1937), arr. 1v, orch, arr. chorus, pf;
• "Nobody knows the trouble I've Seen (Philadelphia: Theodore Presser, 1938);^[60]
• "Some o' These Days", arrangement for voice and piano, date uncertain (likely in the late 1930s or early 1940s).^[107]
• Two Traditional Negro Spirituals, 1 v, pf (1940): "I Am Bound for the Kingdom" and "I'm Workin' on My Buildin'"^[108] HerConcert Overture on Negro Spirituals, Symphony in E minor, andNegro Folksongs in Counterpoint for string quartet, all serve as excellent examples of her idiomatic work.^{[citation needed]}
• "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?", pf (1942);
• "I am bound for the kingdom", 1v, pf (1948);
• "I'm workin' on my building", 1v, pf job at Florida
• "Heav'n bound soldier", male chorus, 1949 [2 arrs.];

Undated:

• "Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho" (arranged by Price, ca. 1940s–1950)
• "Peter, Go Ring dem Bells" (undated)^[59]
• Variations on a Folksong "Peter, go ring dem bells)", org (date uncertain, likely mid-20th century);^[109]
• "I couldn't hear nobody pray", SSAATTBB;
• "Save me, Lord, save me", 1v, pf;
• "Trouble done come my way", 1v, pf;
• ?12 other works, 1v, pf
  • Manuscripts of approximately 40 songs in US-PHu (Philadelphia); other manuscripts in private collections and archives at the University of Arkansas and the University of Florida.^[110]

(supplied by Calvert Johnson)

• Andante Con Espressione
• Deserted Garden
• Elfentanz
• Fantasie in G minor for Violin and Piano (1933)

• Adoration (1951/2024), arranged for orchestra by Kai Johannes Polzhofer^[120]

• William Grant Still

• Ammer, Christine.Unsung: A History of Women in American Music. Portland Oregon, Amadeus Press, 2001
• Brown, Rae Linda.Grove Music 2001. Accessed March 15, 2007.
• Brown, Rae Linda. "William Grant Still, Florence Price, and William Dawson: Echoes of the Harlem Renaissance", in Samuel A. Floyd, Jr (ed.),Black Music in the Harlem Renaissance, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990, pp. 71–86.
• Ege, Samantha. "Florence Price and the Politics of Her Existence",Kapralova Society Journal 16, no. 1 (Spring 2018): 1–10.
• "Florence Beatrice Smith Price", Biography.com. Retrieved December 1, 2014.
• Mashego, Shana Thomas.Music from the Soul of Woman: The Influence of the African American Presbyterian and Methodist Traditions on the Classical Compositions of Florence Price and Dorothy Rudd Moore. DMA, The University of Arizona, 2010.
• Perkins, Holly Ellistine.Biographies of Black Composers and Songwriters; A Supplementary Textbook. Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Publishers, 1990.
• "Price, Florence Beatrice",Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2006. Encyclopedia.com. December 1, 2014.
• Slonimsky, Nicolas (ed.) (1994),The Concise Edition of Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 8th edn, New York: Schirmer, p. 791.

• Brown, Rae Linda (1987).Selected Orchestral Music of Florence B. Price (1888–1953) in the Context of Her Life and Work. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University.
• Brown, Rae Linda (2020).The Heart of a Woman: The Life and Music of Florence B. Price. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.ISBN 978-0252043239.
• Green, Mildred Denby (1983).Black Women Composers: A Genesis (1st print. ed.). Boston: Twayne Publishers.ISBN 9780805794502.
• Phelps, Shirelle; Smith, Jessie C. (1992).Notable Black American Women. Detroit: Gale Research.ISBN 9780810347496.

• Florence Price − American Heritage
• Florence Price − Violin Concerto No. 2 (1952)
• Florence B. Price Music Manuscripts, Library of Congress
• Florence Beatrice Smith Price (1888–1953), Correspondence, musical scores, and other papers, 1906–1975, University of Arkansas, Special Collections, Manuscript Collection 988:
• Free scores by Florence Price at theInternational Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
• "MUSA 19 – Florence Price".Music of the United States of America (MUSA). Archived fromthe original on September 1, 2013.
• Florence Price and the Politics of Her Existence inKapralova Society Journal, 16, no. 1 (Spring 2018): 1–10.
• Symphony No. 1 in Em,From the Archives
• Symphony No. 1 in Em (video; 38:35) onYouTube
• Martínez, A (October 20, 2021)."Pianist Lara Downes re-centers the music of the Great Migration".NPR.org. Downes' mini-album features music by Florence Price and Harry T. Burleigh. The interview discusses Florence Price.
• Florence Price – Website Dedicated to Florence Price

• 1887 births
• 1953 deaths
• 20th-century American classical composers
• 20th-century American women composers
• African-American classical composers
• African-American women classical composers
• American Conservatory of Music alumni
• American women classical composers
• Chicago Musical College alumni
• Classical musicians from Illinois
• Composers for pipe organ
• Musicians from Chicago
• Musicians from Little Rock, Arkansas
• New England Conservatory alumni
• Pupils of George Whitefield Chadwick
• University of Chicago alumni
• 20th-century African-American women
• 20th-century African-American musicians

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