Quintets for Piano and Strings by Dvořák and Price

Winchester Unitarian Society opens its 16th annual concert series Friday, November 5th, at 8:00 p.m., with a live, online performance of two extraordinary piano quintets: Antonin Dvořák’s Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 81, and Florence Price’s Piano Quintet in A Minor. Works will be performed by John Kramer (piano) and musiConnect’s resident artists Betsy Hinkle (violin), Josh Addison (violin), Kevonna Shuford (viola), and Lizzy Cook (cello).

Pairing Dvořák’s and Price’s piano quintets yields a listening experience both musically stunning and historically illuminating. Czech composer Dvořák completed his piano quintet in 1887, shortly before moving to the U.S. to become director of the National Conservatory of Music (now the Julliard School) in New York City. The school welcomed women and black students as well as white men, unusual for its time. While there, Dvořák immersed himself in African American spirituals, incorporated them in his works, and advanced the idea that African American (and Native American) music should be the foundation of “American” music.

Several composers took Dvořák’s idea to heart, but it was realized uniquely in Florence Price’s music. Price was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1887. She graduated at the age of 19 from the New England Conservatory of Music, where she studied with pre-eminent composers George Chadwick and Frederick Converse. Price’s works, including the Piano Quintet in A Minor, are rooted in classical European tradition and almost universally incorporate elements at African American spirituals and folk music.

Pianist John Kramer is Music Director at Winchester Unitarian Society and Assistant Professor of Harmony at Berklee College of Music. Violinists Betsy Hinkle and Josh Addison, violist Kevonna Shuford, and cellist Lizzy Cook are resident musicians at musiConnects (www.musiconnects.org), a nonprofit organization that offers free and low-cost music education programs to learners of all ages in neighborhoods in and around Boston. For a link to the concert, go to: https://www.winchesteruu.org/news/concert-series/