Two, Small, Quiet Pieces by Florence Price

Here is the third in my series of organ works by African-American composers played on a historical American instrument, the 1893 J.W. Steere organ in the First Baptist Church of Owatonna, Minnesota, sampled by Evensong.

Taken from the same dissertation I cited in prior uploads, the biographical sketch about this composer reads as follows:

“PRICE, FLORENCE BEATRICE SMITH (1888-1953) When she was nineteen, Florence Price earned an undergraduate degree in 1906, from the New England Conservatory with a major in piano pedagogy and an artist's diploma in organ, having studied with George Chadwick. Price held teaching positions in the Arkansas public schools, Shorter College in Little Rock, and Clark University in Atlanta where she became head of the music department. Price continued her studies in Chicago at the Chicago Musical College, the American Conservatory with Leo Sowerby, Chicago Teachers College, and the University of Chicago. She wrote teaching pieces for piano that were included in the Oxford Piano Course and the Silver Burdett music series. Price became famous for her symphonies and large piano works, for which she was the recipient of numerous first prize awards.”

Additionally, Price was born very close to where I grew up–Little Rock, Arkansas–on April 9, 1887*; she was the first black woman to have a piece performed by a professional orchestra (Chicago Symphony Orchestra).

*I have two different sources showing different dates. One is the dissertation, the second is the volume of published works. With the more precise day given in the published works version, I'm choosing that one to attach to her composer field here in CCH.