I made a recent appearance on Sonosphere, an eclectic music podcast recorded at Crosstown Concourse in Memphis. It was broadcast on 91.7FM Memphis on Feb. 15, 2021 and is now available on the Sonosphere website, Soundcloud, and wherever podcasts are available. The episode is dedicated to Florence Price, and I talk about the discovery of her work in 2009, her posthumous publication by G Schirmer, and how John Michael Cooper found me on Youtube and asked me to help him edit some of the newest releases. I also talk about my own history of learning about Black composers from working at an HBCU, how it changed the course of my life, and the need to integrate Black composers and all marginalized composers into the standard repertoire.
Also featured on the podcast is Dr. Douglas Shadle from the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt (incidentally where I worked as a collaborative pianist for 8 years- but at that time I was busy doing just that nonstop and our paths never crossed). Dr Shadle, Karen Walwyn, and A. Kori Hill talk about Ms. Price’s life and the state of music by Black composers today, and I am honored to appear beside these three .
Our dialogue is interspersed with some of the best current recordings of her work and that of her student Margaret Bonds. The podcast itself is a beautiful work of art and I invite you to listen and learn about this important composer!
Listen here:
https://sonospherepodcast.com/2021/02/28/birth-of-modern-music-series-part-7-florence-b-price/