Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight

Florence Price: Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight
George Gershwin: A Concert Panorama

Saturday, May 4, 2019, 3:00 pm
North Andover High School Auditorium

430 Osgood Street
North Andover, MA
Map • Phone: 978-682-4050

With piano accompaniment

PURCHASE TICKETS

This concert is funded in part by a grant from Choral Arts New England.


About the Concert

Florence Price (1887–1953) was the first African-American woman to be recognized as a symphony composer, and the first to have a composition played by a major orchestra (Chicago Symphony Orchestra, 1933). In 2009, a substantial collection of her works and papers was found in an abandoned house on the outskirts of Chicago, Illinois. Among these works was Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight, a 30-minute work for chorus, soloists, and piano, set to a poem by Vachel Lindsay. Andover Choral Society will sing from a new performing edition of this work, prepared by ACS Music Director Dr. Michael Driscoll, from Price’s unpublished manuscript. The program will also include our soloists performing a selection of art songs by Florence Price as well as some of her arrangements of African-American spirituals.

Among the audience members at the 1933 Chicago Symphony Orchestra performance of Price’s symphony was George Gershwin, one of the best-known American composers of the 1930s! Our program will feature a selection of Gershwin songs sung by both the chorus and soloists.

We are thrilled to also feature The Andover Baptist Church Unity Choir directed by Michael Belcher.

Read the program notes.

Kynesha Patterson
soprano