The Music Institute Celebrates Composer Florence Price
May 8th, 2025
Launched in 2021, the Music Institute of Chicago’s One Composer, One Community initiative highlights the life and work of a single under-represented composer each academic year, inviting students, faculty, and the broader community to engage deeply with their music and story.
For the 2024–2025 season, the MIC featured composer was Florence Price. Price was the first Black female composer to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra (the CSO in 1933), yet she struggled for recognition within her lifetime.
Throughout the school year, Music Institute faculty and students explored Price’s work through lessons, performances, and special events.
Avi Friedlander, Director of the Barston Suzuki Center, also shared his thoughts on integrating Price's music in the Suzuki repertoire. “I believe Florence Price (and other women composers and African American composers) should have their music integrated into the learning and development of all musicians. In the standard Suzuki cello repertoire, we only have one women composer (M. Paradise) available in all of the ten Suzuki cello books. Therefore, I think it is important to support the Suzuki literature with supplemental music (like Ms. Price's) that represents all types of composers, compositions, genres and time periods.”
Professional Development Panel
In February, MIC hosted a professional development panel for its faculty and invited members of the Chicago Consortium of Community Music Schools. The event featured leading scholars and interpreters of Price’s music, including:
- Dr. Samantha Ege, award-winning researcher, musicologist, and internationally recognized concert pianist
- Dr. Louise Toppin, critically acclaimed performer and leading scholar on African American composers
- Rachel Barton Pine, celebrated violinist and MIC alum whose 25th anniversary edition recording Violin Concertos by Black Composers Through the Centuries includes Price’s Violin Concerto No. 2
Paying Tribute with a New Commissioned Work
As part of this year's initiative, the Music Institute of Chicago commissioned a new work paying tribute to Florence Price from K-Love, poet, national spoken word artist, and motivational speaker.
On May 2, the MIC team brought this tribute to Evanston’s Haven Middle School, engaging more than 600 students with an interactive presentation, a live performance of Price’s music, and the world premiere of K-Love’s poem.
COMMUNITY CELEBRATION CONCERT
On May 2, the 2024–2025 One Composer, One Community initiative culminated in a Community Celebration Concert at Nichols Concert Hall. The free event featured fourteen of Price’s compositions performed by students from both the Community Music School and the Academy, alongside MIC faculty.
"Performing the Three Negro Spirituals for Two Pianos was such a personal moment—I felt a spiritual high at every rehearsal!" said Dr. Soo Young Lee, who performed in the concert.
The evening also included remarks from Dr. Traci Lombré, a cultural historian and ethnomusicologist who specializes in the performance and pedagogy of Kansas City and Chicago’s Black musical traditions as well as the premiere of by K-Love's poem to the general public.
