IDAGIO | New York Youth Symphony - Florence Price: Ethiopia's Shadow in America; Piano Concerto in One Movement • Valerie Coleman: Umoja: Anthem in Unity • Jessie Montgomery: Soul Force 822252250329

Featuring

Michael Repper
Michelle Cann
New York Youth Symphony
Florence Beatrice Price
Valerie Coleman
Jessie Montgomery

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Composition History

Florence Price's Symphony No.1 in E minor was premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1933, marking the first time a major national orchestra championed the work of a Black woman.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Valerie Coleman's Umoja, named after the Swahili word for 'unity' and the first principle of the African Diaspora holiday Kwanzaa, was originally a simple song for women's choir embodying 'tribal unity'.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Jessie Montgomery's Soul Force is a symphonic work that aims to portray a voice struggling to be heard beyond oppression, taking the form of a march that grows in mass to a triumphant goal.

Composer Biography

Florence Price, born in Little Rock, Arkansas, trained as an organist and piano teacher at the New England Conservatory.

Compositional Technique

Florence Price's Piano Concerto in One Movement incorporates a body percussion style known as 'pattin' juba,' performed by enslaved people for leisure on plantations, to bring the work to a brilliant end.

Historical Context

In Florence Price's Ethiopia's Shadow in America, the term 'Ethiopia' alludes to the transnational and transhistorical injustices experienced by people of African descent, influenced by Italy's attempted fascist conquests of the East African nation.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Florence Price developed a compositional style that blended African American folk songs from her heritage with the German Romantic tradition in which she was trained.