New! Pianist Josh Tatsuo Cullen performs music by Florence Price
“Scenes in Tin Can Alley” released
June 3, 2022 on Blue Griffin Records
“Cullen performed with an astounding mixture of coolness and intensity… with an unfailing sense of rhythm and drive” — Stuttgarter Zeitung
The music of Florence Price (1887 – 1953) is enjoying a renaissance. The 2009 discovery of a trove of manuscripts in the African-American composer’s abandoned summer home generated a lot of excitement and renewed interest in her life and work. The pianist Josh Tatsuo Cullen has recorded an entire album of her evocatively-titled music for solo piano, all specifically from that 2009 discovery. "Scenes in Tin Can Alley: Piano Music of Florence Price" (Blue Griffin BGR615) is released on June 3, 2022. The album includes the first commercial recording of several of these compositions, including Scenes in Tin Can Alley, Thumbnail Sketches of a Day in the Life of a Washerwoman, Village Scenes, and Cotton Dance.
In the liner notes, Cullen writes:
I chose these works not only because they deserve to be heard, but because they spoke to me as an artist. As a person of mixed Japanese and European descent, I feel a strong connection to Price’s desire to honor and elevate the marginalized people of her own mixed-race heritage personified in Scenes in Tin Can Alley, Thumbnail Sketches of a Day in the Life of a Washerwoman, and Three Miniature Portraits of Uncle Ned.
The composer Florence Price (1887–1953) is the first African-American woman to have an orchestral piece played by a major American orchestra: the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed her Symphony in E Minor in 1933. Born in Little Rock, Ark., and educated at the New England Conservatory, her career blossomed after she moved to Chicago in 1927. Her music received widespread recognition beginning in the 1930s. Price wrote over 300 works, and her arrangements of spirituals were often performed by Marian Anderson, Leontyne Price and other singers.
Contact ClassicalCommunications@gmail.com to request a physical CD or digital copy of this recording.
Scenes in Tin Can Alley
Piano Music of Florence Price
Blue Griffin Records (BGR615)
Release Date: June 3, 2022
Tracks
Scenes in a Tin Can Alley (1928)
[01] The Huckster 1:44
[02] Children at Play 3:06
[03] Night 6:23
Thumbnail Sketches of a Day in the Life of a Washerwoman (1938-1942)
[04] Morning 1:24
[05] Dreaming at the Washtub 1:52
[06] A Gay Moment 0:37
[07] Evening Shadows 2:21
[08] Clouds (circa 1940’s) 5:47
Village Scenes (1942)
[09] Church Spires in Moonlight 5:34
[10] A Shaded Lane 2:14
[11] The Park 1:47
Preludes (1926-1932)
[12] No. 1 Allegro moderato 1:49
[13] No. 2 Andantino cantabile 2:33
[14] No. 3 Allegro molto 1:08
[15] No. 4 Wistful. Allegretto con tenerezza 2:58
[16] No. 5 Allegro 1:40
Cotton Dance (circa 1940’s)
[17] Presto 3:16
Three Miniature Portraits of Uncle Ned (1932-1941)
[18] At Age 17 1:03
[19] At Age 27 1:16
[20] At Age 70 1:51
Total time: 50:35
About the Artist
The pianist Josh Tatsuo Cullen is acclaimed for his “astounding mixture of coolness and intensity” (Stuttgarter Zeitung) and has been praised for his “delicious” collaboration by The New York Times. He has performed as solo and collaborative pianist at venues throughout the world.
His recordings include Beethoven’s Piano Concertos Nos. 1, 2 and 3, and Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos in E-flat major with his mentor, Paul Badura-Skoda, all with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra led by Paul Freeman. At age nine he performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A major, K. 488 with the Moscow Philharmonic at Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, recording the work in studio the same week.
Cullen holds a master’s degree in piano from The Juilliard School, and a master’s degree in collaborative piano from New York University. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan at age 16.
Born in Hawaii and raised outside of Detroit, Josh Cullen proudly served in the United States Army for over a decade as an interpreter and interrogator.