Jeneba Kanneh-Mason, Chineke! Orchestra – Florence Price: Piano Concerto in One Movement; Symphony No. 1 in E Minor (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Jeneba Kanneh-Mason, Chineke! Orchestra – Florence Price: Piano Concerto in One Movement; Symphony No. 1 in E Minor (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:01:06 minutes | 1,02 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca Music Group Ltd.

In the year of Florence Price’s 70th anniversary, Chineke! Orchestra celebrate the composer’s legacy with two of her landmark award-winning pieces which led to her major breakthroughs as a composer. Recorded with Jeneba Kanneh-Mason who, almost a century on, continues the legacy of women championing Price’s music for present-day audiences with her recording of the work.

Fifteen years in advance of this 2023 release, the name of African-American composer Florence Price was known mostly to specialists in the field of African-American music in her native U.S. The discovery of a large cache of her manuscripts in 2009, which included the Piano Concerto in One Movement heard here, helped her reputation along, but of most importance has been the warmth and accessibility of her music, which approaches the fusion of European and African American elements in consistently fresh ways. The final section of the Piano Concerto in One Movement and the third “Juba” movement of the Symphony No. 1 lay on the syncopation, but that is not the only arrow in Price’s quiver. Consider the concerto’s second part (although titled “Concerto in One Movement,” it has three distinct sections, marked by short pauses), which doesn’t quote anything but has an indefinable air of African American song. Pianist Jeneba Kanneh-Mason catches this and brings out how Price is often at her best when she is most subtle. Anyone who has attended some student recitals in the U.S. knows how young musicians have taken to Price’s music, and it seems to fit Kanneh-Mason’s personality nicely; there is a spontaneous, enthusiastic quality to her playing, and she is confident in the technically difficult, Rachmaninov-influenced music of the concerto’s first movement. The Chineke! Orchestra lacks a certain snap in the really syncopated sections of the Symphony No. 1, but on balance, this is a recording likely to contribute to Price’s growing international popularity; various factors cohere to make it a satisfying listen. – James Manheim

Tracklist:
1-01. Jeneba Kanneh-Mason – Piano Concerto in One Movement: Andantino (07:58)
1-02. Jeneba Kanneh-Mason – Piano Concerto in One Movement: Adagio cantabile (06:11)
1-03. Jeneba Kanneh-Mason – Piano Concerto in One Movement: Andantino – Allegretto (03:35)
1-04. Chineke! Orchestra – Symphony No. 1 in E Minor: I. Allegro ma non troppo (17:56)
1-05. Chineke! Orchestra – Symphony No. 1 in E Minor: II. Largo, maestoso (14:28)
1-06. Chineke! Orchestra – Symphony No. 1 in E Minor: III. Juba Dance (03:42)
1-07. Chineke! Orchestra – Symphony No. 1 in E Minor: IV. Finale. Presto (04:45)
1-08. Chineke! Orchestra – Ethiopia’s Shadow in America: II. His Resignation and Faith (02:29)

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