Florence Price Music Festival

Transcription

1 Florence Price Music Festival Florence Beatrice Price ( ) Florence Price is best known as the first A frican-american woman whose music was performed by a major symphony orchestra when the Chicago Symphony performed her Symphony in E minor in One of her songs was sung by Marian Anderson at the legendary Lincoln Memorial Concert on Easter Sunday, a seminal moment in the civil rights movement. She was born in Little Rock, Arkansas to J.H. Smith, the first African-American dentist in Arkansas as well as a painter, author and inventor. Her mother, who provided her first music instruction, was Florence Gulliver Smith. Florence was valedictorian of her high school class at age 14 and graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music just 3 years later with a double major in organ and piano. She taught music at Shorter College in Little Rock and Clark University in Atlanta, and in 1912 married Little Rock lawyer Thomas J. Price. In 1927, following a terrible lynching in Little Rock, the Price family relocated to Chicago where she (c achieved great renown as a ourtesy of UA Special Collections) composer, performer and teacher. In the 1970s Special Collections of Mullins Library of the University of Arkansas received the Florence B. Price Materials, a collection of music, letters and other documents. Then in 2011 the library acquired a number of her scores, photos and other documents that had been lost for decades in an abandoned home in the Chicago area. This included music which has either never been performed or has not been performed for at least 60 years. Many newly recovered songs, piano pieces, chamber works, and larger ensemble pieces will be performed by guest performers and faculty and students from the University of Arkansas. Festival Schedule of Events Friday, Jan. 30 7:00 pm: Keynote address by Dr. Rae Linda Brown, Assoc. Provost at Loyola Marymount University and the leading scholar of Florence Price. SBSCH 8 pm Welcome Reception SBSCH Foyer 8:15 pm Concert 1: Music for Choir, Brass Octet, String Quartet, Organ, Piano and Songs SBSCH Saturday, Jan. 31 9:30 am: Scholarly Paper Session in Music Room 115. Papers by Lia Jensen-Abbott, Scott Farrah & Frank Watkins 10:45 am Newly Discovered Price Papers in Mullins Library, Room 104 Presented by Tim Nutt and Tom Dillard, present and past directors of Special Collections 1:30 pm - Concert 2: Spirituals Settings of Florence Price and Masterclass on Price Art Songs by Dr. Ollie Watts Davis, University Professor at the University of Illinois - SBSCH 3:30 pm Concert 3: Music for Orchestra, String Quartet, and various Solo Piano Works SBSCH 7:30 Concert 4: Solo Piano Music of Florence Price SBSCH by Dr. Karen Walwyn, Steinway Artist and Assoc. Prof. of Piano at Howard University The Eddie Wade Jones Black Music Symposium is supported by the Mary Dengler Hudgins Arkansas Music Fund The Blair Fund Walton College of Business Artists and Concerts Committee UA Music Department UA Special Collections Library

2 Florence Price Music Festival - Concert I Stella Boyle Smith 8:15 pm Friday Concert Hall January 30, 2015 PROGRAM Suite for Brass and Piano (rd) Jamal Dean Duncan *, conductor Chase Teague, Alex Grisos trumpets Timothy Thompson *, John Brilhart horns Cory Mixdorf *, Evan Johnson trombones Robert Wiser, tuba Tomoko Kashiwagi *, piano I Grew a Rose (lyrics by Paul Laurence Dunbar) Night (Louise Wallace) Moon-Sook Park *, soprano Tomoko Kashiwagi, piano Variations on Peter Go Ring Dem Bells Jared Aragon, organ String Quartet (1935) (rd) I Moderato Er-Gene Kahng & Ryan Cockerham, violins Tazonio Anderson, viola; Patrick Bellah, 'cello Spring (1913) (Florence Price) (rd) The Sum (Paul Laurence Dunbar) Louise Toppin, soprano (U. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) Lia Jensen-Abbott, piano (Albion College, MI) Three Negro Dances I - Ticklin' Toes II - Rabbit's Foot III - Hoe Cake Tomoko Kashiwagi * & Miroslava Panayotova *, pianos Song for Snow Praise the Lord (rd) University Arkansas Schola Cantorum Dr. Stephen Caldwell *, Director Kristy Mezines, piano * denotes U of Arkansas faculty (rd) indicates a recently discovered composition

3 Florence Price Music Festival Paper Session Room 115 9:30 am Saturday Music Building January 31, 2015 Scott D. Farrah: Uncovering Florence Price's Bifurcated Roots: Pattin' Juba in her Symphony in E minor Scott D. Farrah received his Bachelors degree in instrumental music from Delta State University, his Masters in Music Theory from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, and his Ph.D. in Music Theory from the Florida State University. He teaches at Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, Texas Abstract: Florence Price's E Minor symphony helped define a unique American sound by infusing both Western and black musical tendencies which is exemplified implicitly by her third movement, entitled "Juba Dance." Pattin' Juba, originally an African dance, is a lively and rhythmic dance that migrated to the United States with the slave trade. For Price, it was an important style that she included in all her sonata form works to communicate black musical devices. This study will incorporate traditional music theory concepts with a semiotic approach to black stylistic origins based on the work of Henry Louis Gates Jr. who established a style of literary criticism for the black vernacular, signifyin(g). By applying these analytical techniques to Price's "Juba Dance" I hope to create a new understanding of this piece that will account for its bifurcated roots, and as a result, produce a better appreciation of the racial ramifications on which Price may have been signifyin(g). Lia Jensen-Abbott: Priceless Piano Music: Florence Price s Teaching Pieces and Piano Sonata Lia Jensen-Abbott holds degrees from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (BM, DMA), Pennsylvania State University (MM piano performance and pedagogy; MA theory and history), and Indiana University (performer diploma). She has been teaching at Albion College, Michigan since 2008 Abstract: Florence Price s style exhibits passionate virtuosic writing for the instrument while incorporating juba rhythms and spiritually derived thematic material. It is this assimilation of tradition with cultural spiritual influences that make her works so provocative, accessible, while at the same time critically adventurous. This presentation will outline a pedagogical discussion of the Piano Sonata in E Minor (practice demonstrations, issues of phrasing, form, and voicing). The second part of the lecture recital will highlight some of Price s teaching and character pieces.

4 Stella Boyle Smith Dr. Eddie Wade Jones Black Music Symposium Florence Price Music Festival - Concert II 1:30 pm Saturday Concert Hall January 31, 2015 Dr. Ollie Watts Davis, soprano Casey Robards, piano I'm going to lay down my heavy load I'm workin' on my buildin' I am bound for the Kingdom You won't find a man like Jesus Trouble done come my way Feet o' Jesus (Langston Hughes) Arranged by Lyrics and Music by Florence Price My soul's been anchored in the Lord Arranged by INTERMISSION Sympathy (Paul Laurence Dunbar) Jennifer Burks, soprano & Kristy Mezines, piano Peter Go Ring Dem Bells Arranged by Charles Robinson, baritone & Kristy Mezines, piano Lullaby for a Black Mother (Langston Hughes) Amanda Brooks, soprano & Kristy Mezines, piano Life (Paul Laurence Dunbar) Judd Burns, tenor & Kristy Mezines, piano A native of West Virginia, Dr. Ollie Watts Davis is a University Scholar, Professor of Music, and Music Director and Conductor of the award-winning University of Illinois Black Chorus. She is also the founder and director of the Black Sacred Music Symposium, StudiO: The Ollie Watts Davis Institute for Vocal Arts, and author of the curriculum, TALKS My Mother Never Had With Me for the nationally recognized TALKS Mentoring series. Since her New York debut at Carnegie Hall in 1990, she has appeared as soloist with the nation s leading orchestras, including the San Francisco, Dallas, Minnesota, Houston, and Pittsburgh Symphony orchestras. Dr. Davis has released three CD recordings, has been heard on National Public Radio, and has garnered numerous honors. Dr. Casey Robards has given recitals with singers and instrumentalists throughout the United States, as well as France, Brazil and Costa Rica. Her performing experience ranges from art song, opera, musical theatre, rock/pop styles to the standard string, wind, and brass repertoire, with special interest in music by African American composers. Dr. Robards is currently a faculty collaborative pianist/coach at Central Michigan University and the Bay View Music Festival and has held positions at Indiana University, Oberlin Conservatory, Indianapolis Opera and several music festivals.

5 Florence Price Music Festival - Concert III Stella Boyle Smith 3:30 pm Saturday Concert Hall January 31, 2015 PROGRAM Andante from Ethiopia's Shadow in America (rd) University of Arkansas Symphony Orchestra Robert Mueller *, conductor Reverie (rd) Dance of the Cotton Blossoms Schumann Robert, piano String Quartet in G (1929) (rd) I Allegro II Andante Moderato / Allegretto Er-Gene Kahng * & Ryan Cockerham, violins Tazonio Anderson, viola; Patrick Bellah, 'cello At Our House Suite (rd) I The Washing Machine II Practice Time III Tiptoe to the Cookie Jar Jason Forte, piano A Day In The Life of a Washerwoman (rd) I Morning II Dreaming at the Washtub III A Gay Moment IV Evening Shadows Julia Buckingham, piano Four Encore Songs 1. Come, come 2. Tobacco 3. A flee and a fly 4. Song of the open road. Michael Schuman *, tenor, piano Piano Quintet in A minor (rd) II Andante III Juba Er-Gene Kahng * & Ryan Cockerham, violins Tazonio Anderson, viola; Patrick Bellah, 'cello Miroslava Panayotova *, piano * denotes U of Arkansas faculty (rd) indicates a recently discovered composition

6 The Dr. Eddie Wade Jones Black Music Symposium Florence Price Music Festival - Concert IV Stella Boyle Smith 7:30 pm Saturday Concert Hall January 31, 2015 Dr. Karen Walwyn, piano All compositions by Child Asleep (1932) (rd) Arkansas Jitter (1938) (rd) Down a Southern Lane (rd) My Neighbor s Radio (rd) Cabin Capers (rd) Flame (rd) Silk Hat and Walking Cane In the Land o Cotton Suite (1925-6) (rd) I At the Cotton Gin II Dreaming III Song Without Words IV Dance Sonata in E minor Andante - Allegro Andante Scherzo - Allegro Dr. Karen Walwyn is both a pianist and composer. She is a Steinway Artist and also an Associate Professor of piano at Howard University in our nation's capital. A recording artist for Albany Records, Karen Walwyn, is known for her two volumes of music by American composers entitled Dark Fires along with her recent premier recording of the Florence Price Concerto for Piano with the Black Music Repertory Ensemble by invitation of the Center for Black Music Research. As a Duke Mellon Faculty Fellow, ( ), she completed her most recent composition entitled Of Dance & Struggle a monumental choral work celebrating the life of Nelson Mandela. Ms. Walwyn spends equal amounts of time in writing, composing and performing internationally as well as conducting piano workshops and master classes. (rd) indicates a recently discovered composition