Florence Price News

The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director Franz Welser-Most have announced that Nathaniel Silberschlag will join the Orchestra as Principal Horn beginning the week of August 5. Mr. Silberschlag will sit in The Cleveland Orchestra's George Szell Memorial Endowed Chair.

The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra performs free concerts in five New Jersey parks in June, featuring a family-friendly program of diverse music from across the Americas. The NJSO performs free concerts at Echo Lake Park in Mountainside, Maxwell Place Park in Hoboken, Ocean County College in Toms River, Branch Brook Park in Newark and Marine Park in Red Bank.

This May, the Metropolitan Youth Symphony illuminates the diversity of our nation's rich cultural tapestry with the program "America's Florence."

Their May 8 concert, From Song Came Symphony, will explore the symphonic influence of composer Harry T. Burleigh, whose legacy is often tied to the concertization of the American spiritual. He is also increasingly credited as influencing some of the spiritual-inspired thematic material for the 'New World Symphony' and 'American String Quartet' of Antonin Dvorak. The Burleigh Society, which advances studies of black art music through scholarship and performance, hopes to broaden audiences' understanding of Burleigh's foundational contributions to American classical music.

New York Youth Symphony (NYYS) and Music Director Michael Repper are proud to announce the 2019-2020 season orchestra concerts to be performed in Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall. The 2019-2020 season repertoire features a diverse array of works, from Joan Tower's Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman and Florence Price's Piano Concerto in One Movement, to crowd-pleasers such as Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, Respighi's Pines of Rome, and Mahler's “Titan” Symphony. Featured soloists include 13-year-old piano prodigy Harmony Zhu on Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1, cellist Sterling Elliot on Dvořák's Cello Concerto, and pianist Michelle Cann on the Price Piano Concerto. Ms. Zhu will make her Carnegie Hall debut as part of the Roy and Shirley Durst Debut Artist series. Mr. Elliot is appearing as part of a partnership with the Sphinx Organization.

On Saturday, April 27, 2019, the Handel and Haydn Society will celebrate the breadth and depth of black artistry with powerful music from black composers across three centuries in Nigra Sum Sed Formosa: I Am Black But Beautiful. A collaboration between Castle of Our Skins and the Handel and Haydn Society, the performance will take place at 3:00 p.m. at the Roxbury Community College Media Arts Center.

The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director Franz Welser-M st announced details of their 2019-2020 season which encompasses 76 concerts over 26 weeks. One significant highlight includes a festival designed to explore music and art that was banned, marginalized, and destroyed during the Nazi's Degenerate Art movement, and the continuing impact of censorship on creative expression in society today. The festival will center on Alban Berg's Lulu, one of the 20th century's most influential operas, and includes partner programming with the area's notable arts institutions.

Following the success of the first three sets of Ten Pieces, BBC Music has announced the launch of Ten Pieces Trailblazers for the 19/20 academic year.

Artistic Director Mathis Huber of Austria's recreation-GROSSES ORCHESTER GRAZ announced today following this evening's concert performance that American-Taiwanese conductor Mei-Ann Chen has been appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the 17-year-old orchestra. The appointment extends through the 2021-22 season, beginning September 2019.  

Artistic Director Mathis Huber of Austria's recreation-GROSSES ORCHESTER GRAZ announced today following this evening's concert performance that American-Taiwanese conductor Mei-Ann Chen has been appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the 17-year-old orchestra. The appointment extends through the 2021-22 season, beginning September 2019.

Music Director Mei-Ann Chen and the Chicago Sinfonietta - the adventurous, MacArthur Award-winning orchestra that champions racial, ethnic, and gender diversity in classical music - give world-premiere recordings of newly commissioned works by American Jennifer Higdon, Brazilian-American Clarice Assad, African-American Jessie Montgomery, and Indian-American Reena Esmail on Project W - Works by Diverse Women Composers.

At a time when black people were prohibited from walking through the front doors of public spaces, composer and soprano Ella Sheppard (1851-1915) and the Fisk Jubilee Singers performed on international stages for industry barons, cultural icons, and Queen Victoria. That trailblazing work was furthered by composer and baritone Harry T. Burleigh (1866-1949), whose compositions - crossing racial, religious, and class lines - served to bridge the sound and identity of America. Sheppard and Burleigh's barrier-breaking contributions to the foundation of the American music tradition will be examined in an upcoming concert and conference hosted by the Harry T. Burleigh Society on March 2 and 3 at Carnegie Hall.

Trinity Church Wall Street's Time's Arrow festival (March 5-9), known for its signature combination of early and new music, focuses this spring on amplifying the voices of female artists and exploring sensitive contemporary themes. The centerpiece of the festival is a juxtaposition of two musical portraits of the biblical figure Susanna: Handel's oratorio Susanna, and Artemisia, an opera by Laura Elise Schwendinger, with a libretto by Ginger Strand. Complementing these large-scale pieces is a concert centered on works by Barbara Strozzi, the most prolific composer of secular vocal music in Venice in the mid-17th century and a renowned poet who likely wrote many of her own texts. Performed by Trinity Choir soprano Molly Netter, the concert also features world premieres by Jessica Meyer, Doug Balliett, Alyssa Weinberg, and others (March 8). A Pipes at One concert on that same day, featuring Trinity Associate Organist Janet Yieh, will also reflect the Time's Arrow theme, with compositions by Rachel Laurin, Florence Price, Lili Boulanger, Clara Schumann, and others. All performances take place in the intimate surroundings of St. Paul's Chapel, a Georgian-era gem just a few blocks north of Trinity, and the oldest public building in continuous use in Manhattan.

Carl St.Clair, music director of Pacific Symphony and John Forsyte, the Symphony's president, announce programming for the orchestra's 2019-20 season. Pacific Symphony will celebrate Carl St.Clair's 30th year as music director of the orchestra and pays homage to Beethoven to honor the 250th anniversary of the great composer's birth. This landmark season commences on Thursday, Sept. 26 with Maestro St.Clair conducting the combined forces of Pacific Symphony and Pacific Chorale in a program featuring two great blockbusters: Beethoven's Choral Fantasy, a forerunner to his mighty Ninth Symphony along with Carl Orff's popular masterpiece Carmina Burana, the most frequently performed choral work of the 21st century.

At a time when black people were prohibited from walking through the front doors of public spaces, composer and soprano Ella Sheppard (1851-1915) and the Fisk Jubilee Singers performed on international stages for industry barons, cultural icons, and Queen Victoria. That trailblazing work was furthered by composer and baritone Harry T. Burleigh (1866-1949), whose compositions - crossing racial, religious, and class lines - served to bridge the sound and identity of America. Sheppard and Burleigh's barrier-breaking contributions to the foundation of the American music tradition will be examined in an upcoming concert and conference hosted by the Harry T. Burleigh Society on March 2 and 3 at Carnegie Hall.

The artistry of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Xian Zhang is "Front & Center" in the Orchestra's 2019-20 season, announced today. Classical highlights include a Winter Festival featuring works from the stage-including Wagner's The Ring Without Words, Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet and Mozart's Don Giovanni-performances of co-commissions from Qigang Chen and Christopher Rouse, a weekend of Beethoven's complete piano concertos, key artistic partnerships with diverse organizations, return engagements by audience-favorite guest artists and solo turns by multiple NJSO musicians.

The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO) and Music Director Louis Langree announced details of the much-anticipated 125th Anniversary Season beginning in September at Music Hall. The 2019-20 season welcomes acclaimed guest artists including Renee Fleming, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Artist-in-Residence Guy Braunstein and Grammy winner Isabel Leonard, among others. The season includes performances of Beethoven's legendary Akademie program, a fully staged production of Ravel's opera, L'Enfant et les sortileges, seven CSO commissions, five world premieres, three U.S. premieres, as well as an experimental new concert series titled CSO Proof. The 125th Anniversary Season marks the launch of new initiatives both on and off the stage that build on the CSO's legacy. Leading up to the season, the Orchestra presents CSO Look Around, a first-of-its-kind event celebrating community, diversity, and inclusivity on August 3.

Every February for the past two years, JAG Productions has invited African-American theatre artists to spend a week in White River Junction, Vermont to further the development of a new play or solo performance. Over the course of the one-week residency, three-five projects receive an intensive workshop, constructive feedback, and a staged reading for the public at Briggs Opera House!

The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture has announced its 2019 winter/spring season, a rich program of theater, film, music, poetry, art, and talk events featuring artists and thought leaders including Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter;Tony Award winner Lena Hall; Grammy Award-winning musician and recording artist Eileen Ivers; Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award nomineeAlexander Gemignani;and journalist and former Wall Street Journal columnist Sohrab Ahmari.

Acclaimed jazz pianist Aaron Diehl performs Florence Price's Piano Concerto and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, November 29-December 2 in Newark and New Brunswick. Joshua Weilerstein conducts the program, which also features Stravinsky's The Firebird Suite (1919) and Milhaud's La creation du monde.