By David Fleshler
Florence Price’s Piano Quintet and selections from her String Quartet No. 2 were performed by members of the New World Symphony.
A pillar of the musical establishment shared the New World Symphony’s program Saturday with the first African-American woman to have a work performed by a major orchestra.
Johannes Brahms needs no introduction, although the program drew from youthful works that showed he was pretty serious even then. The other composer was Florence Price, who grew up in segregated Little Rock, Arkansas, earned two degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music and produced songs, piano works, concertos and symphonies.