film screening &
paul j. burgett lecture

The Caged Bird:  The Life and Music of Florence B. Price

Born in 1887 in Little Rock, Arkansas to extraordinary parents, Florence B. Price became the first African-American woman to have her music performed by a major orchestra when the Chicago Symphony premiered her Symphony No. 1 in E Minor at the 1933 World’s Fair. Price’s remarkable achievements during the Jim Crow era are testament to her perseverance and musical gifts.  This is the inspiring story of one woman’s triumph over racism and discrimination. (One Hour.)

Gateways Music Festival expresses its gratitude to James Greeson, the producer of this film, for his permission to show it during the 2022 Festival.

Producer:  James Greeson
Associate Producer:  Dale Carpenter
Narrator: Julia Sampson
Videographers:  Dale Carpenter, James Greeson and Hayot Tuychiev

This film was supported in part by grants from the Arkansas Humanities Council, the Department of Arkansas Heritage and the University of Arkansas.

Photo courtesy of the Special Collections Department of the University of Arkansas Libraries.

paul j. Burgett lecture: Black Idioms in the Music of Florence B. Price

In this Paul J. Burgett Lecture, Dr. Hunter will help contextualize the world and works of the Festival’s featured composer, Florence B. Price.

Hunter’s interactive presentation includes audience engagement and musical examples as well as a preview of Prices’ Symphony No. 3 that will be performed by the Gateways Orchestra at Kodak Hall in Rochester on April 20 and Carnegie Hall in New York City on April 24. 

 Hunter received his Bachelor of Music from the Eastman School of Music, a Master of Divinity and Certificate of Music from Yale Divinity School and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, and a PhD in musicology from Princeton University.  He is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the Frederick Douglass Institute and, in the fall of 2019, began a dual tenure track appointment as Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Rochester and Assistant Professor of Musicology at the Eastman School of Music.