Two Talented African American Composers:
by Rebecca Bennion
Florence Beatrice Price
Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Florence Beatrice Price (1887-1953) earned degrees in organ performance and piano teaching at the New England Conservatory, with additional training at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. Her career blossomed in the 1930s and 1940s during the Chicago Renaissance.
Trained in the classical European tradition, Price brought influences from her cultural heritage to her compositions.
Many of Price’s works contain pentatonic melodies with spiritual or folk song elements that express her African American roots. She holds the distinction of being the first African American woman to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra.
William Grant Still
A Mississippi native, William Grant Still (1895-1978) came from Scottish, Spanish, Irish, African, and Native American ancestry. After his father died when William was a baby, Still was raised in Little Rock, Arkansas by his mother, opera-loving stepfather, and Negro Spirituals-singing grandmother.
Still received musical training at Wilberforce University in Ohio and Oberlin College but was a mostly self-taught musician.
Called the “Dean of African American Composers,” Still pioneered as a Black man in conducting and composing for symphony orchestras and opera companies. Like Price, most of Still’s compositions combine Western harmonies with African American blues. Still is known for his passionate melodic lines and simple yet elegant harmonies which communicate powerful emotions.
Although Price earned some recognition in her lifetime, her music was infrequently performed for decades after her death in 1953. Fortunately, recent attitudes have reinterpreted Price as a national treasure. Increasing scholarship and performances are helping Price begin to get the attention she deserves. The Negro Spiritual survives as an integral part of American history, and Price’s references to Spirituals in her compositions help ground us in our collective American musical heritage.
Still, who lived and worked during a time of racial divide in the United States, experienced hardships as an African American classical musician. He died at age 83, leaving a rich legacy of music, yet underrecognized and underappreciated. In 1995, at the centennial of William Grant Still’s birth, Bill Clinton honored Still’s contributions to our national heritage, saying “through his long, rich career, he created works of such beauty and passion that they pierced the artificial barriers of race, nationality, and time.”