The Art of the Black Feminist Scholar-Performer

The art of the Black feminist scholar-performer encompasses the conviction that there is a history of classical music (i.e., Western art music) to be told both from a Black woman's vantage point and the subsequent dialogue between research and repertoire. I apply this to my scholarship on African American women's contributions to classical music in the era of the Black Chicago Renaissance, which unfolded through the first half of the twentieth century. I am particularly drawn to the wider narrative of community and sisterhood that surrounded Florence Price (1888–1953) and her status as the first African American female composer to debut with a major national orchestra, specifically, the Chicago Symphony.² My book project, focusing on the activity that emanated from Chicago's South Side neighborhood and titled, South Side Impresarios: Race Women in the Realm of Music, explores Price's and other Black women's contributions and milestones—not as anomalous exceptions...