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Colour of Music Festival Honors Pioneering Black Female Composer Florence

CHARLESTON CHRONICLE — Since 2013 the Colour of Music Festival has brought international, national, and regional classically trained black musicians of African descent to share their musical talents.

Published

7 years ago

March 7, 2019

Oakland Post

By The Charleston Chronicle

The Colour of Music Festival announces the seventh annual Colour of Music Festival March 27-30, 2019 at three historic locations in the heart of downtown Charleston showcasing leading black classical artists from France, Britain, Colombia, and the Caribbean and highlighting the musical achievements of lesser known black female composers including Florence B. Price.

Since 2013 the Colour of Music Festival has brought international, national, and regional classically trained black musicians of

African descent to share their musical talents, knowledge, and inspiration to Charleston. Since March 2018 the Festival has also traveled across the U.S. to leading collegiate venues and performance halls in Washington DC, Atlanta, Houston, Pittsburgh, and Richmond.

Spring 2019 Colour of Music Festival Highlights

A spotlight on black female composers including pioneer Florence B. Price is a fitting theme for National Women’s History Month and an auspicious evolution of the Festival’s commitment to ensure black female classical performers are both elevated and included in the classical music canon and live performances.

“Honoring Florence B. Price among other women of color who have contributed significant works but whose compositions are rarely programmed and heard by major American orchestras is classical music’s last glass ceiling which also includes scant percentages of black female conductors and music directors,” said Lee Pringle, Founder and President of the Colour of Music Festival.

Several of Price’s chamber setting works written in 1944 including her Negro Five Folksongs in Counterpoint and String Quartet in G Major will be performed as part of the Festival’s intimate Chamber Music presentations taking place at the Edmondston-Alston House Museum Salon, 21 East Bay Street, Murry Center Salon, 14 George Street, and Burk High Performance Arts Center, 244 President Street in historic downtown Charleston.

Composer Florence B. Price

Florence Beatrice Smith Price (1887-1953) was the first African-American female composer to have a symphonic composition performed by a major American orchestra and is considered the first black woman in the U.S. to be recognized as a symphonic composer. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed her Symphony in E Minor in 1933 under the direction of Frederick Stock.

Florence B. Price

Price struggled to make headway in a culture that defined composers as white, male, and dead. Only in the past couple of decades have Price’s major works begun to receive recordings and performances, and these are still infrequent. Though widely cited as one of the first African-American classical composers to win national attention, she is mentioned more often than heard. Not only did Price fail to enter the canon, a large quantity of her music came perilously close to obliteration until an Illinois couple found her compositions in a run-down house they were about to renovate—a potent symbol of how a country can forget its cultural history.

“The late Margret Bonds, a student of Ms. Price and many living composers including Dominique Le Gendre and Nkeiru N. Okoye, have been presented at the Festival—our spotlight on women as part of National Women’s Month in March makes this year’s festival very special,” said Lee Pringle, President and Artistic Director of the Colour of Music Festival.

More about Black Female Composers in History

Calendar of Events | Colour of Music Festival March 27-30, 2019

Wednesday, March 27

Piano Recital, Karen Walwyn, pianist • 2 p.m.

Chamber Music I

Colour of Music Virtuosi (all-female chamber orchestra) • 7 p.m.

Anyango Yarbo-Davenport, conductor and soloist

Thursday, March 28

Symposium: Florence B Price Legacy • 2 p.m.

Louse Toppin, Ph.D. presenter

Chamber Music II: Florence B. Price Spotlight • 7 p.m.

Negro Five Folksongs in Counterpoint

Friday, March 29

Vocal Recital, Louise Toppin • 2 p.m.

Chamber Music III: Florence B. Price Spotlight • 7 p.m.

String Quartet in G Major

Saturday, March 30

Organ Recital, Eldred Marshall, organist • 12 p.m.

Masterworks: Florence B. Price Showcase • 7 p.m.

Piano Concerto in D Minor in One Movement

Chelsea Tipton II, conductor; Karen Walwyn, piano

Colour of Music Festival Tickets and Information

By phone (866) 811-4111

Online: www.colourofmusic.org

At door: (credit card, cash or check) before each performance

Tickets $15-$45; special K-12 pricing for student groups of 10 or more

This article originally appeared in the Charleston Chronicle.

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Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

3 days ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Oakland Post: Week of February 25 – March 3, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – February 25 – March 3, 2026

Published

4 days ago

March 1, 2026

Oakland Post

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

6 days ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke