What I Wish Everyone Knew about Florence Price
Words Matter
With the world coming down around us, I’m not sure how relevant this will be. But maybe it can point to a better world in the future. (~DS, 3/18)
In my last post, I highlighted some of the exciting work on Florence Price taking shape right now. I also documented the positive power of storytelling when it frames performances of her music. By this point, most organizations programming Price’s music know they have a compelling story on their hands and want to tell it.
What I wish everyone really knew is this:
How we talk about Florence Price matters. A lot.
The Problem
The basic elements of “the” Florence Price story are:
Price was “America’s first significant African American woman composer” and “the most widely known African American composer from the 1930s to her death in 1953.” (Rae Linda Brown, The Heart of a Woman, 1)
Something happened after 1953 that seemingly caused this “significance” and “wide knowledge” to “fade.”
In 2009, two property investors found a very large collection of Price’s music manuscripts strewn about an abandoned house. They later sold this collection to the University of Arkansas Mullins Library.
The classical music industry developed a surge of interest in Price after:
Alex Ross and Micaela Baranello first covered this story in the New Yorker and the New York Times (respectively) early in 2018;
G. Schirmer acquired the publication rights to Price’s entire catalog.
There’s certainly a lot of human interest here! Her prolific musical career is inspiring, and the serendipity of the manuscript discovery is the stuff of legend. Performers would be foolish not to say something about these things. But one phrase on my list sticks out: “Something happened.” I might as well have put a giant question mark.
Here’s the thing, though: Marketers, educators, and performers who don’t adequately account for this mysterious #2 in their narratives about Price are perpetuating the industry’s racist, sexist norms and therefore undermining their own attempts to be inclusive.
Who’s Responsible?
So what happened, Shadle? It’s complicated! From the intro of an unpublished article:
The relevant evidence spans nearly a century and uncovers the complex dynamics of race, gender, and class underpinning the unsettling “loss” of Price’s belongings. Over the course of that century, the women in Price’s family confronted questions that have routinely haunted African American women in a society that has unapologetically placed their very lives at risk. This article teases apart the intricate layers of generational change within Price’s family and creates a portrait of a context in which her music could face persistent existential threats.
Persistent. Existential. Threats. Not something most classical musicians think about on a daily basis. But the truth is that identifiable individuals and organizations played active roles in Price’s marginalization both during and after her lifetime—a situation so profound that it jeopardized the existence of her music despite the resistance of Price and her daughter (which is what the rest of the article is about). “Something” doesn’t “just happen.” People do things, and these actions have consequences.
Assigning responsibility is central to ethical storytelling.
“Overlooked” and “Forgotten” … By Whom?
Before I continue, I want to make it clear that I’m far from the only person to address the issue of agency—in relation to Price or to marginalized people generally.
This tweet by Dr. Matthew Morrison of NYU gets to the heart of the matter:
Her music and reputation never really disappeared! Price scholar Kori Hill wrote an essential essay in November 2018 (just after G. Schirmer announced the acquisition of Price’s catalog) that makes similar points:
The “rediscovered” Black composer is a tired, damaging trope. It reflects an active process [emphasis mine], where certain histories and cultural memories are not considered “relevant” to the mainstream until they prove useful. Black musicians kept the name of Florence Price on their lips, in their minds, and under their fingers. She was not forgotten.
Earlier this year, James Bennett wrote another essential piece for WQXR that approaches the question from a slightly different angle:
When talking about Price, it’s easy to transform her story into a Coach Carter-esque hardscrabble narrative of overcoming obstacles and “persevering.” But this veers into territory that is, at worst, factually wrong or, at best, narratively irresponsible.
Finally, this tweet from Kenyan scholar Dr. Keguro Macharia directly addresses the underlying problem:
Read the entire thread. It could very well be about Price, because the ease with which her music has been brought into the spotlight also indicates how quickly it could fade.
The Wrong Way
These writers aren’t tilting at windmills—not at all. It’s easy to find examples of passive storytelling that hides responsibility. Take a line like this—here from Jesse Rosen, CEO of the League of American Orchestras:
“If you go back in time, this was not a viable career for a woman to become a composer,” Rosen explains. “And so, you have a canon that, by definition, does not have a lot of women composers in it.”
“Not a viable career…” “So you have a canon that…” “So you end up with…” Nope. Just wildly inaccurate narration that deflects responsibility from the real individuals and institutions that actively marginalized (and still marginalize) real women.
In Price’s case, I frequently run across copy like this (not linked intentionally):
Florence Price was the first female African American composer to have a symphonic work performed by a major symphony orchestra (Chicago Symphony, 1933). [True] Florence and her compositions have been historically overlooked [BY WHOM??] due to racial and gender inequity [CAUSED BY WHOM?], depriving her and the world of the legacy she deserves. Her works are often compared to Dvořák [BY WHOM??], as they both reference African American folk music and share a Romantic aesthetic. This concert will showcase the similarities in their sounds, and will explore why a white, male, European has been praised throughout history for his take on “American” music [BY WHOM??], while Florence Price has been continually forgotten and omitted [BY WHOM??].
There’s a good heart here, but the way the writer addressed item #2 is inaccurate and morally flimsy. A responsible storyteller needs to specify who did these things.
What would this paragraph look like if we inserted historical agents?
Florence Price was the first Black woman to have a symphonic work performed by a major symphony orchestra (Chicago Symphony, 1933). Whether through prejudice or ignorance, most conductors have since neglected her music, depriving her and the world of the legacy she deserves. This concert is part of our effort to redress the legacy of pervasive racial and gender inequity they left behind instead.
Here are some key features:
Price’s achievement and stature are maintained.
The comparison to Dvořák becomes a moot point.
The active complicity of just one or two conductors in injustice (e.g., Serge Koussevitzky) is expanded to include the entire industry for decades on end.
The organization is acknowledging its own role in this active complicity.
The organization is openly taking an anti-racist, anti-sexist stance that could be framed in a more intersectional way if the situation warrants—e.g., “legacy of Black women’s oppression they left behind instead.”
No extra research or facts, only a forthright analysis of the broader landscape.
Get Uncomfortable
If writing in a more responsible way is so simple, why don’t more people do it?
White people in North America live in a social environment that protects and insulates them from race-based stress. This insulated environment of racial protection builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering the ability to tolerate racial stress, leading to what I refer to as White Fragility. — Robin DiAngelo, “White Fragility”
Racial comfort. To maintain this comfort, many predominantly white organizations promote diversity initiatives to avoid being labeled “racist” while taking other actions that more quietly reify racism on a deeper structural level.
Can you imagine being OK with that ghoulish calculus? Far too many people are.
Again, I’m not alone in thinking that performers might be exploiting Price’s story for racial comfort rather than fighting injustice. Bennett again:
[C]orrective work takes time and concentrated effort; we can’t give up on the scores of other women of color who made massive contributions to the music we love so much. I’m willing to bet, too, that a lot of it is unrecorded, or still hidden—we must be vigilant and start looking for everything that might be out there. Remember: Price’s work was found in a dilapidated house on the outskirts of a small Illinois village, so we’re lucky it wasn’t lost forever.
Our “rediscovery” of Florence Price is a wonderful thing, but it should be the first step in rectifying issues of underrepresentation in this space. Just as Porgy and Bess can’t be “The Black Opera” or Moonlight can’t be “The Black Critically-Acclaimed Oscar Winner,” Price can’t become your two-for-one diversity play.
Bennett is questioning the facile suggestion that the recent recovery of Price’s manuscripts proves that she’s “one of the few” Black women composers of note—and therefore not a disruption of white male normativity. Price scholar Samantha Ege’s research on other composers like Nora Holt is actively challenging this conceit.
Echoing Kori Hill, Bennett also suggests that people who program Price but remain oblivious to decades of accrued injustice, prejudice, and ignorance are doing the bare minimum on the surface while still perpetuating these patterns of oppression underneath. This point could use some oomph, so I’ll try to explain it with a different example.
More than once, I’ve written commentary about the body of music known as “the Negro Spirituals” only to have contacts at predominantly white organizations replace it, over my objection, with the phrase “African American Spirituals.” Their rationale is that the word “Negro” is outdated and possibly offensive.
Not untrue in the abstract, especially for a white writer like me. So why object?
Take this succinct commentary from Dr. Alisha Jones, a scholar, minister, and practitioner who is one of the world’s leading authorities on Black sacred music:
Note that she described “African American Spiritual” as “quite jarring terminology.” Jarring…to whom? The very people who have the most investment in this body of music! (See #4, #7, and #9) Changing “Negro Spiritual” to “African American Spiritual” has two interrelated consequences that run contrary to the intent:
It appeases the consciences of white people who think they are avoiding offense—but still cause offense.
It avoids discomfort for white people who, when they see the phrase “Negro Spiritual,” must confront the twisted logic of racism, the historical reality of enslavement (the source of the repertoire), and the continued oppression of people of African descent. In other words, it whitewashes a racist past.
How does this situation relate to Price?
Price’s music, including her orchestral music, has always been available for performance from the moment she wrote it until now. So, whose fault is it that predominantly white organizations don’t know more about it, or “overlooked” it?
The notion that her music has recently been “discovered” or “rediscovered” gives a free pass to the countless individuals and organizations who wanted nothing to do with her before 2018, or never sought any music by women of color!
As Morrison and Hill explain, the “rediscovery” narrative also silences the voices of the many people who attempted to forge a robust legacy for Price before 2018 but ran into brick walls. Most of them, including her daughter, were Black women “speaking into the void.” As with the phrase “African American Spirituals,” performing Price’s music makes white people feel good about themselves despite the harm caused by their framing narratives. Simply put, this behavior is unethical.
To combat white fragility like this, people should stop asking, “How does this action make my organization look?” Ask instead, “Who is being served by this action?” Echoing Aubrey Bergauer, I pointed out in a previous post that if an organization doesn’t take a stand, it stands for nothing. Here’s an opportunity to stand for something important.
A Better Way
Beyond the work of the writers I’ve already cited, more ethical approaches to storytelling are certainly possible in a variety of contexts. Here are two examples.
First, (white) music critic Steve Smith:
This short blog entry explores a book written and illustrated by students at the Kaufman Music Center’s Special Music School called Who is Florence Price?
In lively and affirmative prose, the book recounts a succinct version of Price's life that hews to facts presented in [two] widely read 2018 articles […] (It bears mention that those two stories unwittingly played into a burst of “long-lost composer rediscovered” claims, which scholars like Kori Hill and Doug Shadle, among others, rebutted efficiently; unlike her manuscripts, Price herself never had gone wholly missing.)
The rediscovery of the manuscripts—a genuinely momentous event that absolutely did serve to catapult Price back into the public eye—both starts and finishes the story. […] The prose is easygoing and stylish, telling a story of aspiration, determination, and substantial achievement. The authors deal with obstacles represented by Price's gender and ethnicity in plainspoken manner. And notably, while the instance of conductor Frederick Stock taking up Price's Symphony No. 1 is rightly treated as a life-changing event, a reader gets the sense that the milestone came as a result of Price's resolve to have her talent noticed and appreciated, rather than an anointment of worth from a white male elite.
There are two layers of good writing here—the children’s and Smith’s. The children—children!—deal with the obstacles Price faced in plainspoken manner and foreground Price’s self-valuation. Smith, meanwhile, cited the work of an expert (Kori Hill) as a way of framing his own understanding of the material. He took the time to develop cultural competence by reading the work of others. He then cited this work to amplify Hill’s voice, as well as to de-center his own position as white male critic.
Second, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (a predominantly white organization):
The DSO has programmed Price’s Third Symphony at the Detroit Institute of Arts for November 6 of this year. The symphony premiered on November 6, 1940 at that very venue. The orchestra in question was a Works Progress Administration-sponsored group conducted by Valter Poole (1903–1984). Earlier that fall, Poole had contacted Price to see if she would pass along some of her smaller dance pieces, but she sent him the symphony instead—a bold move that ultimately paid off.
In any case, Erik Rönmark and his team at the DSO researched the circumstances of the premiere and want to recreate it as part of a larger celebration of the past and present of Black classical composition. (A concert the next night is featuring Tyshawn Sorey’s new violin concerto.) If plans proceed apace, the event will include a display of archival documents from the WPA music collections at the DIA as well as discussion about Price’s involvement with the premiere. A multidisciplinary dream!
Clearly the local circumstances played a role in the decision to mount this event, but that’s precisely what makes it attractive. With its Classical Roots initiatives (among others), the Detroit Symphony has acknowledged and amplified the voices of Black classical musicians for over forty years and, in so doing, has developed strong tools for effective storytelling. (See, for example, the recent premiere of Dr. Nkeiru Okoye’s Black Bottom, a piece that directly confronts the city’s history of racial injustice.)
Stop. Read. Ask.
Readers familiar with my work know that I sometimes rail against what I perceive as music-historical stupidity. I’m sure it makes me look like an angry pedant.
Maybe it is pedantry sometimes. But critiquing commentary about Price is far more fundamental: As Dr. Macharia’s tweet indicates, these critiques challenge “standard” (i.e., white) methods of knowledge transmission that don’t necessarily apply here.
If you’re writing about Price, stop. (Don’t stop entirely; just take a breather.) Tell yourself, “There’s going to be something here that I’m not seeing.” Read what little material is available, and think about what experts like Hill, Morrison, Jones, Bennett, Machuria, and others have said. If your narrative doesn't directly engage with and then cite previous work by Black women, you’re doing it wrong. If you still have specific questions that seem unanswerable, reach out to a scholar of Price’s music and ask for help. Scholars do this work so that others can benefit from it!
Finally, embrace the reality that you might not be able to find all the answers, and that’s OK. As Rae Linda Brown wrote in her forthcoming Price biography:
The necessary evidence required to write a detailed biography of Florence Price is surprisingly scant. She was a very private woman who preferred to reveal herself through her music rather than through correspondence and memorabilia. Since Price was a devoted single mother who also had a commanding career, she probably had precious little time to sort through and organize her scores, files, press clippings, and the like. That we have any documentation of Price’s career at all, outside of newspaper accounts, is due, in large part, to her daughter, Florence Price Robinson, who began to promote her mother’s career in the 1940s.
Let me repeat this with an added word of caution: Documentary evidence is scant, which means that making truth claims about Price (beyond very basic facts) requires training and expertise in diverse historical methods.
In that case, let me add this: How you came to know Price’s music is the compelling story. Like Steve Smith and the Detroit Symphony, tell it! Bring it to your organization and your community! And be honest about the limitations of your understanding. The story will have instant relevance for listeners if it connects past and present. Audiences might share stories of their own so everyone can grow and be heard.
A Postscript: Back to the Big Picture
Doesn’t it seem utterly unthinkable that music by Beethoven, Gershwin, or any other “canonical” figure could suddenly disappear? Their music will always exist. Raise the possibility, though, and you quickly realize that we virtually never tell stories about how we (the industry writ large) came to know music by white men. Why is that?
The classical music industry tends to operate in a white patriarchal intellectual frame that doesn’t account for the lived experiences of people who aren’t white men. Acknowledging this fact makes white people uncomfortable. That’s why telling responsible stories about Price is difficult—but also why it’s necessary. Raise the possibility that a successful Black woman’s music might have disappeared completely, and where does that leave the white men who never had to think twice about it?
Maybe most of them are less significant than we think.
Music City Spotlight: If you can spare anything in these dark times, please support chatterbird, an experimental chamber ensemble whose performance of music by Leila Adu on March 20 had to be canceled because of the public health emergency.
Content fueled by Badbeard’s Microroastery (Portland, OR).