Florence Beatrice Smith Price was the first African-American female composer to have a symphonic composition performed by a major American symphony orchestra.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed her Symphony in E Minor on June 15, 1933.
She is part of a display of Arkansas artists now up at the Pine Bluff Convention Center.
Born and raised in Little Rock, Smith published musical pieces while still in high school. She graduated as valedictorian from Capitol Hill School in 1903.
Smith received her musical education in Boston and came back to Arkansas to teach. She was a music teacher for one year at the Cotton Plant-Arkadelphia Academy in Cotton Plant, only 8 miles from my hometown of Brinkley. When she left Cotton Plant she went to teach at Shorter College in North Little Rock, where I currently reside. She later taught and composed music in Atlanta, Little Rock, and Chicago. An elementary school in Chicago is named for her.
Read more about this trail-blazing musician at the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Wikipedia also has an informative piece.
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