Grow Music Presents the music of Florence Price at Missoula Public Library

“Grow Music Presents…” showcases Missoula’s diverse music scene, uniting local youth with professional artists. Each event unveils a unique slice of our city’s eclectic musical tapestry. These shows offer a consistently fresh and innovative experience. Join us!

The February concert features a dynamic string quartet of Ali Schultz Levesque, Amelia Sears, Sara Schultz Levesque, and Jessica Catron. They will be performing “Five Folk Songs in Counterpoint” along with the Hellgate High String Quartet.

Other performers include Jayla Mitchell performing “Adoration,” a fantastic young cello duet of Mari N. and Maija R. playing “Rabbit Foot,” and five talented students – Reed S, Wilson D, Charles M, Giana H, and Michael V. – singing the folk songs and spirituals that inspired Price’s work.

This is a one-time event not to be missed!

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Florence Price (1887 – 1953) was a native of Little Rock, Arkansas, and a pioneer black American composer who distinguished herself early in her life. She is remembered as the first black American woman to garner success as a composer of symphonic music. Her first symphony is perhaps her best-known work. Winner of a national prize, it was given its premiere in 1933 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra—a social and cultural milestone at that time.

At a young age she journeyed north to Boston to study at the New England Conservatory, and returned to Arkansas and Georgia to teach at various small black colleges. After marriage she and her husband left a racially troubled Arkansas in 1927 for Chicago and her further study at the American Conservatory of Music. Her career blossomed, and recognition for her art led to the aforementioned symphony in 1931.

She composed in a variety of other genres: chamber works, piano music, and vocal compositions–over three hundred in all! Her songs and arrangements of spirituals are perhaps her most performed compositions. Sadly, few of her works have been published; but with her increasing popularity today, that very well may change.

She wrote two compositions for string quartet, both dated around 1950, although she may have begun one of them much earlier. Our concert features the quartet originally entitled “Negro Folksongs in Counterpoint;” after the addition of two broadly American folksongs to the original three, she changed the title to simply “Five Folksongs in Counterpoint.”

In these five movements, one will hear a variety of accompanying motives and counter-motives, usually in a non-imitative texture.
Price was well-educated in traditional European classical compositional styles and techniques, and her sophistication shows eloquently in this work. Recipient of early recognition, and then relative obscurity, her music is now enjoying a renaissance.

–Wm. Runyan

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