Takács String Quartet and pianist Marc-André Hamelin

Grammy-winning string quartet ensemble Takács Quartet and renowned pianist Marc-André Hamelin perform works by Hugo Wolf, Florence Price, and Antonin Dvořák. The evening\’s highlight will be the pairing of the recently discovered Price Piano Quintet in A-minor set against one of it\’s inspirations, Dvořák\’s Piano Quintet in A-major, both pieces heavily influenced by African-American folk music.

Price was born in Little Rock, Arkansas into a mixed-race family and later moved to Atlanta, Georgia where, despite the racial issues of that time, the family was well respected within its community. Her father was the only African American dentist in the city, and her mother was an important music teacher who gave Florence her earliest training. She published her first composition at the age of eleven. She later attended the New England Conservatory of Music where she studied with George Chadwick and Frederick Converse. After several racial incidents, she moved with her family to Chicago where she studied at the Chicago Musical College, Chicago Teachers College, University of Chicago, and the American Conservatory of Music. In Chicago, she connected with such notables as writer Langston Hughes and contralto Marian Anderson. In 1933 Price’s E Minor Symphony was performed by the Chicago Symphony, the first piece by an African American woman to be played by a major orchestra.