By Erika Kuehl | Staff Writer
In 1933, Florence Price became the first Black female composer to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra. Almost a century later, Dr. Michael Clark, a lecturer of piano at Baylor, is preparing to release his rendition entitled “Waltzes and Character Pieces of Florence Price.”
“I literally had never heard of her until 2018,” Clark said. “In my schooling, she was not mentioned at all. And so over the past few years, her music has become more widely known. It’s finally getting published. And so when I became aware of it, I realized just how much I enjoyed it, so that’s when I started working on her music. And so this album is a recording of about an hour’s worth of her music.”
All 19 tracks on Clark’s album are previously unrecorded pieces of Price’s work. He said many were not published during her lifetime since she lived in the post-Civil War era.
“Basically, Florence Price was unknown to many classical musicians for a long time because of racism and sexism,” Clark said.
Clark said Price’s folk style, paired with the romantic music tradition of the 19th century, drew him to her music.
“It’s just very beautiful and tuneful,” Clark said. “And so it’s always surprising to hear new old music. There’s always new music being composed these days, … but when you hear something you’ve never heard that’s actually quite old, … that was impressive.”
Clark received a grant from Baylor to begin the recording process. Shortly after, he traveled to the University of Arkansas to study Price’s handwritten manuscripts.
“She had such beautiful, neat handwriting on these copies, and it was just so elegantly laid out,” Clark said. “So that felt like stepping back in time. It brought me much closer to her, it felt like.”
Clark said when recording any musician’s work, he takes on their role and adopts some of their musical technique.
“The performance style changes depending on the music, but I am drawn [to it], I would say,” Clark said. “Her music has an immediacy, a kind of naturalness of expression. That’s very easy for me to tap into.”
Clark said Price’s music has a positive beat and would be best enjoyed when in a “sunny, happy mood.”
“Maybe it’d be in the morning with a cup of coffee or when you just want a peaceful time, because most of the album is pretty happy,” Clark said.
Clark said he hopes the Baylor community will listen to Price’s music and learn more about her as an influential Black figure.
“She’s also such an important historical figure, being the first Black woman to have a major symphony performed,” Clark said. “And also, there’s two parts to that. Black composers and female composers have historically been marginalized in classical music. If we picture people — Bach, Beethoven, Brahms — white men. But that’s not all of those who compose music. It’s such a male-dominated field and European-dominated field.”
Clark said his goal with the album release is for people to listen and get excited about Price’s music.
“I would love to have the opportunity to record more of her music, so if it’s successful, then I can hopefully continue that process,” Clark said. “I’m in the very early stages of a book project about her piano music, and so if there’s a good response, then it can help me further my projects with her music down the road.”
Dr. Bradley Bolen, senior lecturer of piano, listened to one song on Clark’s album and said it was “a very fine recording, excellent playing and a very fine engineered sound.”
“I think it’s important that we always branch out and explore new repertoire,” Bolen said. “And I think there’s a lot of very, very fine composers — particularly people of color and women, in this case, both in the same person — [who] deserve the opportunity to be heard. When it was written, they just didn’t have that kind of opportunity or that kind of support. So in recent years, it’s become more interesting for people to go back and take a look at some of this music that may have been overlooked. And in the process, they’ve discovered some real gems of composers and individual pieces.”
“Waltzes and Character Pieces of Florence Price” will be available on Friday on all streaming platforms.
