Beethoven & Florence Price

BEETHOVEN & FLORENCE PRICE CLASSICAL
domestic music making and the level of common
music training required to support it.
In spirit and form the Septet follows the model
of 18th-century divertimentos and serenades,
a lighter entertainment in a range of short
movements. It opens, however, with an almost
symphonic movement, complete with slow
introduction and a substantial coda.
The sparkling minuet is based on a theme from
Beethoven’s piano sonata Op. 42, No. 2, which,
higher opus number notwithstanding, had been
composed in 1796. Beethoven uses all of the
instrumental variety available to him in the
theme and variations (five, plus coda) that follow.
A solemn march introduces the finale, a bright
and dashing Presto with a cadenza for the violin,
a feature not uncommon in earlier divertimentos.
ROUMAIN: STRING QUARTET NO. 5
(“PARKS”), II. KLAP UR HANDZ
Daniel Bernard Roumain, also known by
his initials, DBR, is a prolific and endlessly
collaborative composer, performer, educator,
and social entrepreneur. “About as omnivorous
as a contemporary artist gets” (New York Times),
DBR has worked with artists from Philip Glass
to Bill T. Jones to Lady Gaga; appeared on NPR,
American Idol, and ESPN; and has collaborated
with the Sydney Opera House and the City of
Burlington, Vermont. Acclaimed as a violinist
and activist, DBR’s career spans more than two
decades, earning commissions by venerable
artists and institutions worldwide.
Known for his signature violin sounds infused
with myriad electronic, urban, and African-
American music influences, DBR takes his
genre-bending music beyond the proscenium.
He is a composer of chamber, orchestral, and
operatic works; has been nominated for a Sports
EMMY for Outstanding Musical Composition
for his collaboration with ESPN; featured as
keynote performer at technology conferences;
and created large scale, site-specific musical
events for public spaces.
DBR earned his doctorate in Music Composition
from the University of Michigan and is currently
Institute Professor and Professor of Practice at
Arizona State University.
An avid arts industry leader, DBR serves on the
board of directors of the League of American
Orchestras, Association of Performing Arts
12
Presenters and Creative Capital, the advisory
committee of the Sphinx Organization, and was
co-chair of 2015 and 2016 APAP Conferences.
Each of DBR’s first five string quartets honors
a figure of the American Civil Rights movement.
String Quartet No. 5, “Parks,” commemorates
Rosa Parks. According to the composer, “I
created [this work] as a musical portrait of Rosa
Parks’ struggle, survival, and legacy. The music
is a direct reflection of a dignified resistance.
It’s telling that this work may, in fact, be
performed on stages that didn’t allow the
presence of so many, so often. I often refer to
the stage as the last bastion of democracy,
where all voices can and should be heard, where
we are all equal, important, and necessary.” The
second movement, performed tonight by a full
string section, is called “Klap Ur Handz,” and
celebrates the communal activity of clapping.
PRICE: ANDANTE MODERATO
Florence Price (née Smith) was born on April
9, 1887 in Little Rock, Arkansas and began
her musical journey by studying piano with
her mother, a music teacher. At 14, she
graduated from high school and enrolled at
the New England Conservatory in Boston,
Massachusetts with a focus in piano and organ.
While there, she began studies in composition
and counterpoint with George Chadwick and
Frederick Converse, and graduated in 1906
with both an artistic diploma in organ and a
teaching certificate. After a few years leading
her own private studio, Price moved to Atlanta
and earned a position as head of the music
department at what is now Clark Atlanta
University, a historically black college. She
returned briefly to Little Rock and then migrated
with her family to Chicago in 1927, where she
advanced her musical studies under Arthur Olaf
Andersen, Carl Busch, Wesley LaViolette, and
Leo Sowerby.
In 1932 her Sonata in E Minor for piano won
First Prize in the Wanamaker music contest.
Frederick Stock, music director of the Chicago
Symphony, became a supporter of her music
and programmed her First Symphony. Price
became the first African-American woman to
have a work performed by a major U.S. orchestra
when the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
performed it in 1933. Though she composed
hundreds of pieces, her catalogue did not enter