Travel's End

composer: Florence Price
Gloria Bangiola, soprano
Ji Young Lee, accompanist
Gloria Bangiola's graduate recital explores the words and works of women composers throughout western music history. Learn more about Gloria at gloriabea.com
video/sound engineer: Jake Sachs, jakesachssounds.com
About Florence Price: Florence Price was the first African-American female composer to have her work performed by a major American symphony . A graduate of Oberlin and The New England Conservatory , Price sensed that the combined barriers of race and gender impeded her success . She worked to find her compositional voice amid critics’ and audiences’ expectations about the aesthetics of ‘black’ music . Here is her preface to her 3rd Symphony:
“It is intended to be Negroid in character and expression. In it no attempt, however, has been made to project Negro music solely in the purely traditional manner. None of the themes are adaptations or derivations of folk songs”
Price’s song composition balances the extended tonality characteristic of 20th century composition with the sing-ability of American vernacular tunes. The most famous text among the three is Paul Laurence Dunbar’s Sympathy, which receives allusion in such works as Maya Angelou’s I know why the Caged Bird Sings. Price’s voice is crucial in any conversation about access and agency in the arts. I do not seek to speak for her by singing her composition. Instead, I strive to give Florence Price a forum to speak for herself.