PC(USA) church in Erie, Pennsylvania teams with a neighboring university to offer a much-anticipated concert next month
Acclaimed pianist Michelle Cann will headline an evening celebrating the trailblazing work of Florence Beatrice Price
LOUISVILLE — First Presbyterian Church of the Covenant in Erie, Pennsylvania, is teaming with Dr. Carolyn Baugh, a professor at Gannon University, to celebrate Black History Month with a free musical event in the church’s sanctuary that Erie residents will not soon forget.
At 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, Feb. 19, internationally acclaimed concert pianist Michelle Cann and local instrumentalists and singers will perform some of the works of Florence Beatrice Price (1887-1953), the first African American woman to, in 1933, have a major orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, an all-white, all-male orchestra, perform her work.
“A lot of [Price’s] compositions have gone unrecognized for years,” but have been receiving increased attention recently, said the Rev. Britney L.V. Knight, the church’s associate pastor.
Seph Kumer, the church’s director of community engagement, said the event “grew out of years of relationship” with Baugh, who teaches African American, Middle Eastern and world history, Arabic and gender studies courses at Gannon University. Baugh is working with students to help organize the concert, which unfortunately cannot be livestreamed.
As part of the university’s oral history program, Baugh’s students have interviewed refugees who have settled in Erie. The goal of those interviews, Baugh says on a video, is to help students “recognize bias and think critically.”
The more than 75 Gannon students involved in the project “are getting some experiential knowledge of Florence Price and her music, and more broadly the arc of African American history in the United States,” Baugh said. “The church is making it possible for the event to be accessible to the students and to the whole community.”
“Dr. Baugh approached our church about one year ago with the concept of a Florence Price concert,” Kumer said. “Because of Price’s connection to Allison Memorial Presbyterian Church in Little Rock, Arkansas, and our Erie church’s 50-year partnership and proximity with Gannon University, First Presbyterian Church of the Covenant was the hoped-for venue.”
“I admire her resilience and determination, her ability to focus on contributing beautiful music to the world even though the world she lived in was even uglier than ours is,” Baugh said of Price.
The local NPR affiliate and PBS station also got on board with the concert, Kumer noted. Erie Philharmonic is providing a few musicians, as is the church, “and there is a community choir set to perform at least one piece at the concert. So it is a large-scale community partnership event that none of the participants could pull off alone,” Kumer said.
First Presbyterian Church of the Covenant “is thrilled to host the event,” Kumer said. Staff has been working closely with Baugh, providing sanctuary and technical support for the concert and space for the reception that will follow. Church organist Leslie Weber and a church soloist, Mitchell McVeigh, will, in addition to Cann, present works by Price.
“When a Catholic university, a Presbyterian church neighbor, local musicians and organizations can work together for a free Black History Month event, we should all rejoice,” Kumer said, adding, “I think it will be a really good event for the community.”
“We wouldn’t have this if we weren’t open to our neighbors and been willing to collaborate with them,” Knight said. “That has changed us in so many ways. It feels like a capstone to all that’s happened.”
Musicians and singers at the church have become well acquainted with Price’s music, including her “Kyrie — Communion Service in F.”
Students attending Gannon University have been researching Price’s varied compositions. As part of the concert, they plan to speak in between musical offerings.
“Dr. Baugh wanted to have the concert here at the church because of the relationship we have with students [at Gannon],” Knight said. “We have all been affected and changed by” those experiences, Knight added.
About Florence Beatrice Price
Florence B. Price was born in 1887 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Her life spanned the end of Reconstruction, the South’s brutal Jim Crow laws, the Great Migration and the Chicago Renaissance.
She set to music the work of many great African American poets, especially Langston Hughes, and was mentored and championed by musicians including Harry T. Burleigh.
Despite the incredible pressures working against her during the Jim Crow era, in 1933 Price became the first African American woman to have a major orchestra perform her work.
A single working mother who composed and taught throughout her life, she became well-known throughout the African American community. The Chicago Defender wrote often of her accomplishments. Here’s an Unsung Video Podcast on her life.
About Michelle Cann
Michelle Cann, a member of the faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, has played at Carnegie Hall and with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and with symphonies around the world. She won a Grammy for her performance of a Price concerto with the New York Youth Symphony. Her Grammy-nominated album Revival features the music of Price and Price’s student and friend, Margaret Bonds.
Among the pieces scheduled for the Feb. 19 concert at First Presbyterian Church of the Covenant is Price’s “Concerto in D Minor in One Movement.” Listen to Cann play it along with the United States Air Force Band’s Symphony Orchestra here.
First Presbyterian Church of the Covenant is at 250 West 7th Street in Erie, Pennsylvania. Learn more about the Feb. 19 “Resistance Through Music” concert here.
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