A “Juba Dance” is a type of dance brought over by slaves from West Africa. It was used to create music when slaves weren’t allowed to have musical instruments for fear that they were using them to send secret messages. The dancing created repeating percussive rhythms by patting and slapping their arms, legs and chest and stamping with their feet.
|
|
|
After high school, Florence knew she wanted to study music, but, being an African American woman, finding a music school that would accept her was a problem. She finally discovered the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. While in school, Florence wrote her first string trio and symphony. In 1906, she graduated with honors, and a degree in both organ performance and a music teaching certificate.
|
|
|
After graduating from the New England Conservatory of Music, Florence Price returned to Arkansas. She briefly taught music in Cotton Plant, Arkansas. Cotton Plant is a town not much bigger than Weiner.
She left Cotton Plant to teach at Shorter College in Little Rock, Arkansas. She taught at Shorter until 1910, when she moved to Atlanta, Georgia to be the Head of the Music Department at Clark University. |
In 1912, Florence married Thomas Jewell Price, who was a lawyer in Little Rock, so she moved back to Arkansas once again. While in Little Rock, Price established a music studio, taught piano lessons, and wrote short pieces for piano. Despite her credentials, she was denied membership into the Arkansas State Music Teachers Association because of her race.
|
|
|
|
|
Her musical style is a mixture of classical European music and the sounds of black spirituals, especially the rhythms associated with African heritage, such as the juba dance. Price’s southern heritage had an obvious impact on her work, as the titles for some of her shorter works suggest: Arkansas Jitter, Bayou Dance, and Dance of the Cotton Blossoms.
|
|
|