The Florence Price Archives: A Case Study
The Florence Price archives make a fascinating case study in all aspects of preservation and conservation work and the unique considerations needed for sheet music collections. As a Black woman composing music in the first half of the twentieth century, much of Florence Price’s contributions to classical music was overlooked until a 2009 accidental discovery of manuscripts that were thought to be lost. Er-Gene Kahng and Joshua Youngblood of the University of Arkansas (where the archive is housed) discuss its significance for musicians and researchers, the unique story of its rediscovery, and the work that’s been done on the archive to make it accessible to researchers, students, musicians, and the broader public.
This webinar addresses Focus Area #2: Inclusive engagement with diverse communities of the Foundation for the Advancement in Conservation’s (FAIC) Held in Trust Report on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility.
About our speakers:
Er-Gene Kahng is a violinist, researcher and educator whose work came to the fore through her advocacy of the American classical composer, Florence Price. She has been featured on PBS' Great Performances series "Now Hear This: Florence Price and the American Migration", and her recording of Florence Price’s Violin Concertos (Albany Records, 2018) has been cited and praised by sources such as The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and The New York Times as an important contribution to American classical music, and has aired on programs like NPR’s Songs we Love, and APM’s Performance Today. Er-Gene serves as concertmaster with the Fort Smith Symphony, who completed a world premiere Florence Price recording of her Symphonies no. 1 and no. 4 in 2019, and the Arkansas Philharmonic Orchestra’s concertmaster, where she premiered Florence Price’s Violin Concerto no. 2. She is Professor of Violin, and the Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Er-Gene aims to continue the work of equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging by exploring the ways contemporary American classical music can intersect with, and highlight, forgotten narratives of the past and thus shape the musical values of the present and future.
Joshua Youngblood is Associate Dean for Special Collections for the University of Arkansas Libraries, where he has also served as rare books librarian, curator of the Arkansas Collection, and Director of Learning and Engagement. Before joining Special Collections in 2011, he was a member of the Florida Memory Project of the State Archives of Florida, served as the information officer of the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, and was a staff member of Florida Main Street in the Bureau of Historic Preservation. He has published on digital archival exhibiting and archival instruction programs, as well as on the history of Arkansas, lynching, and reform movements in the American South. A graduate of Florida State University, Youngblood is a certified archivist and a past president of the Society of Southwest Archivists.