It was something of a miracle when Florence Price shook up the classical world by becoming the first Black woman to have a symphony performed by a major U.S. orchestra in 1933. And it was something of a travesty that it received only one play from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.听
鈥淚 think a lot of things went into that, but I can鈥檛 help but think racism and sexism and segregation were involved,鈥� says Assistant Director of Orchestral Studies and Instructor of Music Education Joel Schut. 鈥淚 think she鈥檚 one of the great, underrated American composers and it鈥檚 time that she gets her voice fully heard.鈥澨�
Schut, who directs the CU Philharmonia Orchestra, is coordinating featuring a full orchestration of 鈥淪even Miniatures for Piano.鈥� The work comprises seven standalone pieces鈥攑ublished in An Album of Piano Pieces and Second Album of Piano Pieces鈥攅ach of which reveals different facets of Price鈥檚 creative personality. Seven 彩民宝典 student and alumni composers completed the orchestrations.听
鈥淔or this project, there was a strong interest among faculty, students, researchers and music-lovers to feature voices that have been silenced or overlooked in the past,鈥� Schut says.
Price, born in Little Rock, Arkansas, and educated at the New England Conservatory of Music, was a classical composer, organist and music teacher. 鈥淏ut in so many ways, the heart and soul of her repertoire was piano,鈥� says Schut, 鈥渟o we鈥檙e trying to put that into a full orchestra context.鈥澨�
The program will begin with each of the seven piano pieces performed by seven different student pianists in the original setting that Price wrote them. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really cool that all seven pianists are freshman students new to CU,鈥� Schut says. That will be followed by the 70-student Philharmonia Orchestra playing a newly imagined orchestration of those works complete with strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion and harp. 鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to see the work both as it was originally written and then also imagine it in a 2022 context,鈥� Schut says.
The idea to honor Price in this way actually came from a student, 鈥渨hich I think is fabulous,鈥� Schut adds. What excites him most about that idea, he says, are the infinite possibilities.听
鈥淎 piano gives you the pitches and any detail that the composer chose to put in the score, but hearing it in three dimensions with many different timbres and textures and instruments and family groupings鈥攖hat鈥檚 just a whole other way to do the piece,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 really love it because it sparks students鈥櫶齣maginations, and it forces them to listen in multiple directions and dimensions.鈥澨�
Price鈥檚 history-making concert in 1933 was tainted by racism. Her first symphony only made it onto the Chicago Symphony Orchestra program because it was underwritten by Maude Roberts George, eventual national president of the National Association of Negro Musicians. Price once famously wrote: 鈥淚 have two handicaps: I am a woman and I have some Negro blood in my veins.鈥澨鼿er work largely faded into obscurity after her death in 1953.
Schut says, 鈥淚鈥檇 like to think that audiences are anxious to hear things in 2022 differently than they would have in 1932.鈥�
This CU Philharmonia concert is part of a full weekend honoring diverse women composers.
