American composers have always had it tough. And in the golden age of American classical music, composers of color had it especially bad.

Two of them will be featured on an ambitious program to be performed by the Capital Philharmonic of New Jersey at Trenton’s Patriots Theater at the War Memorial this Sunday at 4 p.m. Daniel Spalding will conduct Florence Price’s Violin Concerto No. 1, with Samuel Thompson the soloist, and William Grant Still’s Symphony No. 4 “Autochthonous.”

Both Price and Still were limited in some respects because of the color barrier. Even so, it’s amazing – and inspiring – to learn just how far they were able to make it in an era well before the Civil Rights Movement strove in earnest to level the playing field.

Find out more about them, including the story of the miraculous recovery of Price’s concerto from her semi-collapsed house, as recently as 2009 – and the definition of “autochthonous” – in my article in this week’s U.S. 1 Newspaper – PrincetonInfo, out yesterday. I got so busy, I forgot to let everyone know!

https://princetoninfo.com/african-american-composers-shine-in-trenton/

BONUS: Tune in to hear Daniel Spalding chat about the concert with David Osenberg this afternoon at 4 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.