A phrase in the industry you may or may not have come across is the ‘new music sandwich’. 

This refers to a common curatorial practice to ‘hide’ a new piece in-between older works from the canon, perceived to have greater appeal to classical concert-goers. And yes, as per a typical ‘new music sandwich’, the big new concerto featured in Blazing Trails was second on the program, directly before interval. 

Further typifying the ‘sandwich’, the second half featured purely canonic works from popular composers: a Vivaldi concerto, and a Beethoven quartet arranged by Mahler. However, that’s as far as our program aligns with this metaphorical meal.

As its first divergence, the concert also began with a relatively newer rarity: selections from Florence Price’s Folksongs in Counterpoint (arr. Peter Stanley Martin).

Price is considered the first African American woman to gain recognition as a symphonic composer in the United States, with her first symphony being premiered by the Chicago Symphony in 1933. Combining lush Dvořák-style orchestration with traditional African American folksongs and musics, these works might sound almost cliché in their “American-ness” to a contemporary ear. But for the time Price...