Florence Price

1887-1953

Born in Little Rock Arkansas, Florence Smith was the daughter of the only African American dentist in town. Her mother encouraged her obvious musical talents, she gave her first performance aged 4 and had composed her first work by the time she was 11.

Even so this was the south and increasing problems with racial tensions and discrimination blighted her youth. She enrolled with the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston (aged 15!) and here she published her symphony and a string trio. She avoided discrimination by describing herself as Mexican (how times have changed).

After graduating she returned to Little Rock and married a lawyer, Thomas Price. However discrimination meant she struggled to find work. Eventually the Price family moved to Chicago to escape the deep South.

Here her career flourished. Unfortunately her marriage did not and in 1931, aged 44 she divorced. Initially struggling financially, she composed a symphony in E, a piano sonata and won a Wanamaker Foundation Award. Her work was performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra

In 1940, Price was inducted into the American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers.

Since her death in 1953 however her work has largely been overlooked. In 2009 a chance discovery of a substantial collection of her works and papers in an abandoned house that Price had used as a summer home hit the headlines. Included in the haul were two violin concertos and her fourth symphony.

Work that would otherwise have been lost.