Florence Price (1887–1953)

Florence Price was an American composer who, against all odds, became the first African-American woman to have her work performed by a major symphony orchestra. Born in 1887 in segregated Little Rock, Arkansas, Price showed prodigious musical talent from a young age and pursued her studies at the New England Conservatory at a time when opportunities for Black classical musicians were scarce. She eventually settled in Chicago, where her genius found an outlet amid the city’s Black Renaissance of the 1920s and ’30s. Her breakthrough came in 1933 when her Symphony No. 1 in E minor won a national composition prize and was premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, marking the first time a Black female composer’s music was performed by a leading American orchestra.

Price’s music drew deeply on the wellspring of African-American folk song; intertwining spirituals and Southern dance rhythms into classical forms, creating a sound at once distinctly American and richly symphonic. Over her career she wrote four symphonies, concertos for violin and piano, and dozens of other works. Notably, Marian Anderson (more about her to come) closed her 1939 Lincoln Memorial concert with a rousing spiritual arranged by Price (“My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord”), a symbolic reminder that Price’s artistic voice was also part of the era’s broader struggle for equality.

William Grant Still (1895–1978)

Often hailed as the “Dean of Afro-American Composers,” William Grant Still brought the sounds of Black America into the heart of the classical tradition. Born in 1895 and raised in Mississippi and Arkansas, Still was classically trained in oboe and composition but grew up immersed in the blues and spirituals of the South. His signature piece, the Afro-American Symphony (1930), brilliantly wove blues harmonies and jazz rhythms into a traditional four-movement symphony. When it premiered in 1931 with the Rochester Philharmonic, it was an era-defining success and became one of the most widely performed American symphonies of the time.

Still’s career was marked by a series of historic firsts. In 1936, he conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, becoming the first African American ever to lead a major American orchestra. In 1949, his opera Troubled Island, based on the Haitian Revolution, was produced by New York City Opera, the first opera by an African-American composer to be staged by a prominent company. By the end of his life, Still had written nearly 200 works, ranging from symphonies and ballets to choral pieces and art songs, many infused with themes from African-American life and folklore.

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745–1799)

More than a century before Price or Still, Joseph Bologne, better known as the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, blazed a trail as a Black composer in 18th-century Europe. Born in 1745 on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe to an enslaved African mother and a French aristocratic father, Bologne was taken to Paris as a boy and educated among the elite. He grew into a polymath of rare talent: by his twenties Saint-Georges was France’s finest fencer, a champion equestrian, and an acclaimed violin virtuoso. He became the concertmaster (and later conductor) of the celebrated Concert des Amateurs orchestra in Paris, where he premiered his own concertos and symphonies.

Saint-Georges was the first known classical composer of African descent to earn widespread fame in European music. In the 1770s and 1780s, his compositions, violin concertos, string quartets, symphonies, and even operas, won admirers across France. He was even dubbed “le Mozart noir,” the “Black Mozart,” for the brilliance and refinement of his art. Yet for all his renown, he still encountered racism: in 1776, when Louis XVI considered appointing Saint-Georges to head the Paris Opéra, several of its divas protested the idea of serving under a man of color, and the offer was rescinded. Saint-Georges continued to compose and perform undeterred, and during the French Revolution he served bravely as a colonel leading an all-Black regiment (the St. Georges Legion) in defense of the Revolution’s ideals.

Marian Anderson (1897–1993)

Marian Anderson possessed a voice so rich and expressive that maestro Arturo Toscanini reportedly said it was a sound heard “once in a hundred years.” Born in 1897 in Philadelphia, Anderson began singing in her church choir and soon earned recognition for a contralto voice of extraordinary depth and beauty. During the 1930s she toured Europe to great acclaim, composers like Jean Sibelius were moved by her artistry, and audiences of all nationalities were spellbound. Yet in her own country, America’s segregated society often kept Anderson off the stage. No matter how famous she became, many venues and organizations (including the Daughters of the American Revolution) refused to let a Black woman perform for integrated audiences.

In April 1939, Anderson’s struggle for opportunity became a historic triumph. After being barred from Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. because of her race, she instead performed a free open-air concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, an event organized with help from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. That Easter Sunday, with 75,000 people gathered in person (and millions more listening over the radio), Anderson opened with “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,” then poured her heart into a succession of arias and spirituals. The concert was more than just a performance; it became a defining moment in civil rights history, showing that art could challenge injustice and help unify a divided nation.

Anderson continued to break barriers in the years that followed. In 1955, she became the first Black singer to appear on the stage of New York’s Metropolitan Opera, at last taking her rightful place in America’s most storied opera house. She later sang for President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration and at the March on Washington in 1963, her artistry always intertwined with her advocacy for equality. By the time she retired, Anderson had become an American icon, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and countless honors. Every African-American classical vocalist who rises today stands on the shoulders of Marian Anderson, her legacy living on in the voices she paved the way for, and in the enduring example of dignity she displayed to the world.