Florence Price Violin Concerto No. 2

Florence Price Violin Concerto No. 2 Kelly Hall-Tompkins, violin Urban Playground Chamber Orchestra Thomas Cunningham, conductor Program Notes by A. Kori Hill Florence Price (1887–1953) was a native of Little Rock, Arkansas, where she lived until 1927 when she and her family relocated to Chicago. Fleeing the racial terrorism of the Jim Crow South, Price found herself in a city whose segregation policies had led Black Chicagoans to establish economic, artistic, and scholarly institutions that facilitated creative and communal growth. Already a member of the National Association of Negro Musicians (NANM), Price became an active (and famous!) participant in the Chicago chapter, which hosted recitals and conferences and served as an important networking space for Black musicians. Like her contemporary and colleague Harry T. Burleigh, Price was interested in the creative potential of a classical music aesthetic built on antebellum-era Black folk and western classical music genres. Ra