Welcome

Until recently, the name of Florence Price was alien to most concert goers. If we wanted to hear the musical voice of 20th-century America, we’d turn to Copland, Gershwin, Barber, Ives and handful of other men. But happily the world has changed, and with it our musical horizons have been widened to include other, different voices that have contributed to the US’S musical development. The passing years have seen a growing appreciation of the music of Amy Beach, for instance, and this month our cover CD turns its gaze towards major orchestral works by Florence Price – a brilliant composer whose music is a synthesis of Dvorák-ian late-romanticism, spirituals and America’s emerging jazz age. As we celebrate Black History Month, I sincerely hope her rarely heard (if heard at all) Third Symphony will enter the canon for good. It deserves its place. And it’s a huge pleasure to bring two more masters of orchestration to your ears – Errollyn Wallen and Eleanor Alberga.

Before family life took over, I used to enjoy a spot of Call of Duty. Video gaming (see p48) isn’t the social ill it’s lazily purported to be, and recent titles have become so cinematic that they’ve demanded their own soundtracks, performed by full symphony orchestras and choirs. If film music is a well-established genre, then video game music surely isn’t far behind. Game on!