🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBC #Radio3's #ClassicalMixtape Florence Price & Samantha Ege: 🎵 Untitled Sketch No. 1 #BBCRadio3 #FlorencePrice #SamanthaEge ▶️ 🪄 Automagic 🔊 show 📻 playlist on Spotify ▶️ Track on #Spotify:

Untitled Sketch No.1

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBC #Radio3's #InTune Florence Price, The Philadelphia Orchestra & Yannick Nézet‐Séguin: 🎵 Symphony no.3 in C minor (Juba) #BBCRadio3 #FlorencePrice #ThePhiladelphiaOrchestra #YannickNézetSéguin

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBC #Radio3's #NewYearsDayConcert Florence Price, Vienna Philharmonic & Yannick Nézet‐Séguin: 🎵 Rainbow Waltz #BBCRadio3 #FlorencePrice #ViennaPhilharmonic #YannickNézetSéguin

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBC #Radio3's #SundayMorning Florence Price & Tom Winpenny: 🎵 Suite for Organ No. 1 - Toccata. Allegro #BBCRadio3 #FlorencePrice #TomWinpenny

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBC #Radio3's #ThroughTheNight Florence Price, BBC National Orchestra of Wales & Valentina Peleggi: 🎵 Symphony no 3 in C minor #BBCRadio3 #FlorencePrice #BBCNationalOrchestraofWales #ValentinaPeleggi

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBC #Radio3's #EssentialClassics Florence Price, Elizabeth Coatsworth, Jessica Cottis & Academy of St Martin in the Fields: 🎵 Song for Snow #BBCRadio3 #FlorencePrice #ElizabethCoatsworth #JessicaCottis #AcademyofStMartinintheFields

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBC #Radio3's #Breakfast Florence Price, Chloe Flower, Academy of St Martin in the Fields & Jessica Cottis: 🎵 Song for Snow #BBCRadio3 #FlorencePrice #ChloeFlower #AcademyofStMartinintheFields #JessicaCottis

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBC #Radio3's #SaturdayMorning Florence Price & Anna Lapwood: 🎵 An Elf on a Moonbeam #BBCRadio3 #FlorencePrice #AnnaLapwood ▶️ 🪄 Automagic 🔊 show 📻 playlist on Spotify ▶️ Track on #Spotify:

An Elf on a Moonbeam

Here are all the black female composers!

If you want to change the world, start with the young and malleable. This must have been the thought of Nathan Holder when he decided to write a book about black female composers. Instead of adding yet another exposé to the scholarly literature on the (in)visibility of women composers, he decided to write a book for children. – And call it Where are all the Black Female Composers? A strong and provocative title, because in the struggle for gender equality in music most researchers zoom in on white women composers.

In a mere 79 pages, Holder introduces over 30 composers of colour, arranged in chronological order. Starting with the Brazilian Chiquinha Gonzaga (1847-1935) and ending with the British Cassie Kinoshi (1993). In compact, Wikipedia style texts Holder describes their place of birth, education and achievements and sums up some of their most important works.

After the entries on the featured composers, Holder sometimes lists a few contemporaries, with or without dates or further explanation. Each lemma also offers a music note and three titles (haphazardly placed in inverted comma’s) that seem to refer to the online playlist on page 75, though underneath the QR-code there we find a different set of titles.

Red thread through the book are four children – Phoebe, Callum, Olivia and Zaki – who give ‘fun facts’ or pose questions to which the answers can be found at the end of the book. Olivia shares the fact that Florence Price (1887-1953) composed Rhapsody on Negro Themes for an orchestra of 100 musicians; Callum suggests the kids might recognize the surname of Shirley Graham Du Bois (1896-1977) ‘because she was married to the author W.E.B. Du Bois’. But how familiar is Du Bois to the average adolescent?

Zaki recounts how Irene Britton Smith (1907-1999) was ‘too nervous to accept the offer’ of Florence Price to help her with her compositions. Phoebe informs us that in 1988 Jeanne Lee was named one of the 100 most influential people in jazz in Jazzis, as shown on page 44, where she holds up the cover of this jazz magazine. The booklet is lavishly illustrated, with drawings by Charity Russell of different instruments, the four ‘guides’ in all kinds of postures and lifelike portraits of the composers.

One does wonder what particular kids Holder had in mind while writing. At the start of his book he asks a very relevant question: ‘What is a composer?’ For indeed, many young people are mystified by this concept. It seems unlikely, however they will feel enlightened by his answer that ‘a composer is someone who organizes sounds’. In the next paragraph he takes it for granted the kids are versed in musicological terms when explaining he will focus on black women composers ‘who have written in a classical or neo-classical style’.

Despite these incongruities and its somewhat erratic set-up Where are all the Women Composer provides a lot of valuable information. Composers such as Price, Margaret Bonds (1913-1972), Tania León (1943) and Eleanor Alberga (1949) are fairly well-known, but the names of Dorothy Rudd Moore (1940), Regina Harris Baiocchi (1956) and Nkeiru Okoye (1972) don’t immediately ring a bell’ with a general audience – nor with me for that matter.

By completely focusing on female composers of colour in a book for adolescents Nathan Holder really sticks his neck out. He offers a useful tool for further discoveries into a field that is still largely unexplored in the mainstream music world. His booklet has the impact of a proud banner: Here are all the black female composers!

#CharityRussell #DorothyRuddMoore #EleanorAlberga #FlorencePrice #MargaretBonds #NathanHolder #NkeiruOkoye #ReginaHarrisBaiocch #ShirleyGrahamDuBois #TaniaLeón #WhereAreAllTheBlackWomenComposers

Musicologist-pianist Samantha Ege: ‘The music of Florence Price was a revelation!’

Samantha Ege did not know any black composers until she heard music by Florence Price in 2009. In 2020 she completed her musicology studies with a thesis on Price, a year later saw the release of her CD Fantasie nègre, featuring all 4 Fantasies.

The album is named after the first piece Samantha Ege (1989) ever heard by Florence Price (1887-1953). ‘That was in 2009, when I was studying at McGill University in Canada on an exchange scholarship. During a lecture about the early twentieth century, our teacher played her Fantasie nègre No. 1 in E minor.’ Ege was deeply impressed by this piece for solo piano from 1929: ‘So refined, expressive and colourful! I had never heard anything like it in the classical world.’

Suppressed musical heritage

‘My education had overemphasised George Gershwin as the only composer who drew influence from Black creativity. When I heard Price’s music, this illusion was completely shattered. Although I have been playing the piano since I was three and have always been interested in classical music, it was only in 2009 that I first came across a female composer with African roots. It was also my first encounter with classical repertoire that goes back to Black folk music from a period before jazz and the blues: Price incorporated influences from the spiritual songs of the enslaved.’

The discovery was an eye-opener: ‘It was important for my view of classical music, Florence Price became a role model. It turned out that there is a long history of Afro-American composers who incorporate their cultural heritage into their work. They drew inspiration from slave songs and wanted to give an uplifting voice to an incredibly painful past. Their history had always been suppressed in my musical education. – When I heard Price’s Fantasie nègre No.1, I did not even know there were three more fantasies. I only found this out once I had decided to devote my PhD research to her.’

Stars not yet aligned

This was about six years ago: ‘I was so impressed by her music that I wanted to learn to play it myself. Moreover, I had enormous admiration for Price, because she was a pioneer. In 1933, she was the first black woman to have her work performed by a national orchestra, when the Chicago Symphony Orchestra premiered her First Symphony. As I studied her Fantasy, I soon decided to devote the dissertation for my doctorate at York University to her. But somehow I was not yet “ready” for this piece. – Sometimes it’s as if the stars have to align in a certain way when I choose my repertoire.’

Instead of the Fantasy, she turned to the Sonata in E minor from 1932. ‘I studied it extensively and recorded it on my Four Women CD. I also performed the Sonata in cities like Chicago, Arkansas and Boston, which were important to Price. That is how I came to understand her pianistic voice, the way she approaches form, melody and modulation.’

BLACK Renaissance

‘Her music has a distinctly romantic sound, which resonates with Schumann, Liszt and Chopin. This also goes for black contemporaries such as Samuel Taylor-Coleridge, Nora Holt and Margaret Bonds, who also incorporated Negro spirituals. This anchors her firmly in the aesthetics of the Black Renaissance, a movement in the 1920ies that celebrated the beauty of Afro-African folk traditions.’

Ege played the Fantasy No. 1 in Chicago for the first time in the spring of 2019, at the local Cultural Centre: ‘A place with a rich history, where Price had often spent time herself in the past. I had a wonderful audience, many of whom were familiar with her music. Additionally, I programmed works by Chicago composers Dolores White and Regina Harris Baiocchi, who attended the concert. The atmosphere was magical, and I felt very much part of this history. I think this was the beginning of my next chapter as a musicologist-pianist, for at that moment the stars began to align for an album of all four Fantasies.’

SCATTERED Manuscript pages

That sounds more obvious than it was, because for decades only the First Fantasy had been known. The other three were only found by chance in 2009 in a dilapidated house in Illinois. ‘They had never appeared in print, and were partly scattered around the room as loose manuscript pages.’ Thanks to her thorough knowledge of music theory and Price’s style, Ege managed to reconstruct the pieces in their original form.

All four Fantasies are based on a pentatonic theme, a feature of much folk music. Ege: ‘The First is based on the negro spiritual Sinner, Please Don’t Let This Harvest Pass, the music continuously circles around the five notes E-G-A-B-D. For the Second, Price chose her own five-note theme, in which she links the melancholy of the spiritual to romantic figurations. All four Fantasies have majestic chords, but the Fourth is the most impressive. Price immediately builds up tension with a ceremonious opening, followed by a folk theme that is worked out in expansive variations.’

With substitute pride, Ege concludes: ‘This Fantasy No. 4 in B minor best reflects the diverse and unfettered palette of Price’s artistic expression. It was not without reason that she received an honourable mention for it in 1932.’

This article first appeared in the May issue of the Dutch music magazine Luister.

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#DoloresWhite #FlorencePrice #MargaretBonds #NoraHolt #ReginaHarrisBaiocchi #SamanthaEge #SamuelTaylorColeridge

Pianist Antonio Oyarzabal presents new selection of women composers on La muse oubliée II

In 2021, Antonio Oyarzabal launched La muse oubliée, featuring music by thirteen well-known and lesser-known European women from the Baroque to the 20th century. Two years later, on El fin del silencio, he championed an odd 20 women composers from Latin America. The success of the two discs apparently tasted like more, for the Spanish-British pianist recently published La muse oubliée II, including two dashing preludes by the Dutch Henriëtte Bosmans (1895-1952).

As on the first edition, Oyarzabal presents works from a variety of periods, this time by 18 different composers. His eagerness to introduce as many ladies as possible is laudable, but the downside is that the pieces presented are mostly short; sometimes only parts of a cycle come to sound. With a scant ten minutes the longest work is the Sonata in A major by Marianne von Martinez (1744-1812).

Oyarzabal dedicated his first edition of La muse oubliée to his mother, who taught him to be ‘curious about the unknown’. Perhaps to balance things the new album is dedicated to his father; he does not give a reason.

Oyarzabal confesses being nonplussed by the fact that some compositions have never been recorded before, and promises to remain committed to the work of forgotten and/or underappreciated women. So, more albums are sure to follow.

The CD opens with Wet Night on the Highway by Australian Myriam Hyde (1913-2005). Bubbling runs in the treble recall Debussy’s impressionism, while thundernig chords in the lower register evoke an image of heavy cars rumbling by. The subsequent Sonata by Mozart’s contemporary and esteemed colleague Von Martinez provides a nice counterpoint with its sparkling melodies and firm accompaniment.

The American Marion Bauer (1882-1955) is represented with the triptych From the New Hampshire Woods she composed in 1920. It is quite clear that she moved in the same circles as Ruth Crawford; Bauer displays the same penchant for dissonance and obscuring tonality. Bauer was one of the many Americans who studied with Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979), whose lively miniatures Petites pièces pour piano prove she had something to offer as a composer herself.

The lesser-known Dana Suesse (1909-1987) was among her students, too. Her American Nocturne leans towards jazz, no wonder she was sometimes called the ‘Gershwin Girl’. In Sketches in Sepia by her compatriot Florence Price (1887-1953), we discern both the blue notes so characteristic of jazz and references to negro spirituals. 

Norwegian Agathe Backer-Grøndahl (1847-1907) was highly regarded in her own time and made concert tours all over the world. With their dancing rhythms and exuberant melodies, her opus 30 & 33 are rooted in Norwegian folk music.

Her Serbian colleague Ljubica Marič (1909-2003), introduced in the Netherlands in the nineties by oboist Borislav Čičovački, was also inspired by folklore. Her powerful voice is beautifully illustrated by Pesma and Igra, two ultra short pieces that despite their brevity immediately put you in Balkan spheres. In Khorumi the Georgian Meri Davitashvili (1924-2014) treats us to a boisterous peasant dance full of irregular accents.

With his firm toucher and unadorned interpretations, Oyarzabal brings all the compositions across with great precision. Whatever type of music he performs, he never misses a note and always keeps the fabric transparent. His interpretation is somewhat matter-of-fact, but his playing is virtuoso and the recording technique is flawless. The featured composers could imagine a worse advocate.

#AgatheBackerGrøndahl #AntionioOyarzabal #FlorencePrice #LaMuseOubliéeII #LjubicaMarič #NadiaBoulanger

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBC #Radio3's #Breakfast Florence Price & Catalyst Quartet: 🎵 String Quartet No. 1 in G major (2nd mvt) #BBCRadio3 #FlorencePrice #CatalystQuartet

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBC #Radio3's #EssentialClassics Florence Price, The Philadelphia Orchestra & Yannick Nézet‐Séguin: 🎵 Symphony no.4 in D minor (4th mvt) #BBCRadio3 #FlorencePrice #ThePhiladelphiaOrchestra #YannickNézetSéguin

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBC #Radio3's #ThisClassicalLife Florence Price, Fort Smith Symphony Orchestra & John Jeter: 🎵 Symphony No 1 in E minor - 4th Movement #BBCRadio3 #FlorencePrice #FortSmithSymphonyOrchestra #JohnJeter

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBC #Radio3's #EssentialClassics Florence Price, Marc‐André Hamelin & Takács Quartet: 🎵 Piano Quintet in A minor (4th mvt: Scherzo) #BBCRadio3 #FlorencePrice #MarcAndréHamelin #TakácsQuartet

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBC #Radio3's #EssentialClassics Florence Price, Chloe Flower, Academy of St Martin in the Fields & Jessica Cottis: 🎵 Song for Snow #BBCRadio3 #FlorencePrice #ChloeFlower #AcademyofStMartinintheFields #JessicaCottis

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBC #Radio3's #Breakfast Florence Price, Philadelphia Orchestra & Yannick Nézet‐Séguin: 🎵 Symphony No. 3 in C minor (4th mvt) #BBCRadio3 #FlorencePrice #PhiladelphiaOrchestra #YannickNézetSéguin

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBC #Radio3's #ThroughTheNight Florence Price, BBC Concert Orchestra & Jane Glover: 🎵 Concert Overture No 2 #BBCRadio3 #FlorencePrice #BBCConcertOrchestra #JaneGlover

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBC #Radio3's #ThroughTheNight Florence Price, BBC Concert Orchestra & Jane Glover: 🎵 Concert Overture No 2 #BBCRadio3 #FlorencePrice #BBCConcertOrchestra #JaneGlover

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBC #Radio3's #NightTracks Florence Price, BBC National Orchestra of Wales & Valentina Peleggi: 🎵 Symphony no.3 in C minor (2nd mvt) #BBCRadio3 #FlorencePrice #BBCNationalOrchestraofWales #ValentinaPeleggi