NEC Concert Choir | Florence Price: The Moon Bridge

The New England Conservatory Concert Choir, conducted by graduate student Jennie Segal '21 MM, performs "The Moon Bridge" by alumna Florence Price. Due to of Covid-19 restrictions, some choir members are seen singing masked and socially-distanced in NEC's Jordan Hall, while others performed remotely. Composed by Price in 1930, "The Moon Bridge" is part of a set of 44 art songs. In it, Price sets poetry of Mary Rolofson Gamble.

Florence Smith (1887-1953) was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, one of three children in a mixed-race family. Despite racial issues of the era, her family was well respected and did well within their community. Her father was a dentist and her mother was a music teacher who guided Florence's early musical training. She had her first piano performance at the age of four and had her first composition published at the age of 11.

By the time she was 14, Florence had graduated as valedictorian of her high school class. She subsequently enrolled at New England Conservatory with a major in piano and organ. At NEC, she studied composition and counterpoint with composers George Chadwick and Frederick Converse, and wrote her first string trio and symphony. She graduated in 1906 with honors, and with both an artist diploma in organ and a teaching certificate.

But it was as a composer that Price made her most lasting mark. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra premiered her Symphony in E minor on June 15, 1933, making Price’s piece the first composition by an African-American woman to be played by a major orchestra. Price wrote other extended works for orchestra, chamber works, art songs, works for violin, organ anthems, piano pieces, spiritual arrangements, four symphonies, three piano concertos, and a violin concerto.

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