I recently sat down for a two-part interview on Podium Time, hosted by conductors Jeremy Cuebas and Luke Lyons. It’s a terrific podcast that covers all aspects of the conducting profession and I highly recommend it to conductors and musicians of all stripes.
The episode was titled “On Florence Price and Diversity in Programming.” From the Podium Time show notes:
Today we talk with Jordan Randall Smith about Florence Price and the upcoming festival dedicated to her work, the process of finding hidden gems by underrepresented composers, and why we should focus our efforts on promoting fewer living composers more.
During the interview, we discussed the life and music of composer Florence Price, as well as the importance of increasing the diversity of the composers we program as conductors. We also talk about the process of building up a new project from scratch, something I always love to talk about.
Sample
In this excerpt, taken from the top of the show, we talk about a few of the basic biographical details about Florence Price as well as some of the history to do with her dismissal by the white establishment.