Music for Black History Month - February 18, 2022
Office of the Chaplain
presents Organ Concert Series
Music for Black History Month
Virtual Recital Featuring Sondra Goldsmith Proctor, Organ
February 2022
Recorded in Gunnison Memorial Chapel
James Wildman, Recording Engineer
Go Down Moses Olufela (Fela) Obafunmilayo Sowande (1905-1987)
In Quiet Mood Florence Beatrice Smith Price (1887-1953)
First Sonata for Organ Florence Beatrice Smith Price
One of the less known aspects of Black history is the incredible list of Black composers who are well-trained classical musicians. We know something of the jazz, gospel, blues, and other genres of music history, which include the great music of New Orleans and the wider world, but less of the works of William Grant Still, Noel Da Costa or Evelyn Simpson-Curenton and many others. You may know the name of poet James Weldon Johnson, who was serving as a school principal when he wrote the poem ‘Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.’ His brother, John Rosamond Johnson, set it to music so that the students could sing it to celebrate Lincoln’s birthday. Five hundred school children sang the anthem for the exercises in 1900. The children continued to sing ‘Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing’ for many years in Jacksonville, Florida where it began and took the text and tune with them as they matured and dispersed throughout the country. ‘Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing’ is now recognized by the African-American community as their national anthem.
Chief Olufela (Fela) Obafunmilayo Sowande and Florence Beatrice Smith Price are very important leaders in the field of classical music. They received many honors but not a great deal of public notice during their lifetimes. Today their music is beginning to be programmed more frequently.
Born in Nigeria, Fela Sowande began his classical music training under the tutelage of his father, a priest and composer, and at Christ Church Cathedral in Lagos under Dr. T. K. Ekundayo Phillips. Fela Sowande was the only Nigerian permitted to enter the European-only church in Lagos because he played the organ, inciting criticism from fellow Nigerians. Sowande moved to London in 1934 because of his ‘wish to study European music properly.’ Following his training and acceptance into the world of classical music and jazz in London, he returned to Nigeria to serve as musical advisor for a series of films about Africa, and to serve as Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation musical director and research director of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ibadan. From this period, his music reflects his growing interest in African music melodies and traditions. He wrote an essay entitled “The Learning Process” and published it on the HieroGraphics Online website saying ‘when at last I woke up to the fact that while I was an African/Nigeria/Yoruba, I knew hardly anything about my own African tradition.’ In Yoruba philosophy, it is imperative to know and understand one’s roots. Sowande illustrated this in his essay by recounting a Nigerian proverb: ‘Not to know for sure where one is heading for carries no blame. But not to know where one has come from is unpardonable.’
In 1962, he became a professor of ethnomusicology and director of research at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Later, following a stint as a founding professor in the Africana department at University of Pittsburgh, and as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Pan-African Studies at Kent State University in Ohio, he returned to Nigeria to open the first music school. For several years he supported and encouraged the students. At the end of his life, he returned to Kent State University to continue his research.
His complete body of works is divided into six groups: folk song arrangements, organ works, sacred works, solo art songs, African-American choral works and orchestral works. Many of his earliest works were written for organ. Sowande was interested in both African-American gospel music with its energetic movements and the original songs of the enslaved people – the spirituals with their walking tempi. Though considered American in origin, it is acknowledged that gospel music is derived from traditional African rhythms. Many of the spirituals’ melodies are traced to African traditional melodies.
In 1956, Sowande was made a Member of the British Empire by Queen Ellizabeth II for his ‘distinguished services in the Causes of Music.’ After Nigeria’s independence from British rule, he was given the title of Babagbile of Laos – a chieftaincy title. He composed the Nigerian national anthem.
Sowande’s organ interpretation of the spiritual ‘Go Down Moses’ incorporates the solid chord progressions of the European style with jazz chord changes and African rhythms to create a tone color that is uniquely Sowande’s style.
Florence Beatrice Smith Price was born in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1887. She was influenced by her Southern roots, particularly by the culturally, socially, and politically sophisticated middle class Black community in which she was raised.
Her father was the first Black dentist in Little Rock and her mother was an elementary school teacher before her marriage. After her children were born, she worked as a secretary and successful businesswoman.
Florence was educated in the Black Little Rock public schools and graduated in 1902 at the age of fourteen as valedictorian. Taught by her mother, Florence gave her first piano recital at age four and sold her first composition to a publisher by age eleven.
In 1903 at the age of 15, she enrolled at the New England Conservatory of Music. After three years, she graduated with an Artist’s Diploma in organ and a Teacher’s Diploma in piano. During her conservatory years, Florence Smith was often honored by being called upon to perform at evening recitals, and was invited to perform at her own commencement. Using her training in theory, conducting, and improvisation, she served in several churches as both choir director and organist and, later, was an accomplished theater organist, accompanying silent films in movie theaters in Chicago.
After her studies at the conservatory, Florence returned home to Little Rock to teach music in an academy in Cotton Plant, Arkansas and Shorter College in North Little Rock. She became the head of the music department at Clark University in Atlanta. After her marriage to Thomas J. Price, Florence Price moved first to Little Rock and then to Chicago. In Chicago, Florence Beatrice Smith Price established herself as a well-respected church organist, concert pianist, studio teacher, and a nationally acclaimed composer.
In 1932, Price achieved national recognition when she won first prize in the Wanamaker Music Composition Contest for her Symphony in E Minor. The work was premiered in 1933 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; it was the first orchestral work by an African-American woman to be performed by a major symphony orchestra.
Price composed more than 300 works, including orchestral works, art songs, piano and organ music, and she also arranged instrumental and vocal versions of spirituals. The great singers of the time – Marian Anderson, Ellabelle Dave and Leontyne Price – recorded her works.
Price’s musical style is often conservative, reflecting the romantic, nationalist style of the 1920’s – 1940’s. Much of her work reflects the influence of her cultural heritage, incorporating spirituals, spiritual-like themes and characteristic dance music with classical forms.
In researching this music, I have learned that much of her organ music was composed to be played on an Estey organ in Chicago. Gunnison Memorial Chapel’s organ is an Estey organ built in 1925-26. The organ for which she wrote was a similar style Estey built in 1929 for Grace Episcopal Church in Chicago.
‘In Quiet Mood’ written in 1941 has a quiet rhythmic pulse with a solo stop that creates a beautiful melody for reflection and pausing to take a deep breath.
The ‘Finale’ of the ‘First Sonata for Organ’ written in 1927 is a virtuosic piece including rapid dynamic changes, active pedal work, and a rapid heartbeat for the performer.
It is my pleasure to introduce these compositions to you.
Thank you for listening to this program.
Sondra Goldsmith Proctor