Chicago, the “City We Love to Call Home!”: Intersectionality, Narrativity, and Locale in the Music of Florence Beatrice Price and Theodora Sturkow Ryder

Ege examines four musical recordings by Florence Beatrice Price and Theodora Sturkow Ryder. Price and Ryder were prominent composers in interwar Chicago IL. Both wrote works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, solo instruments, and voice that transformed Chicago's concert culture and brought both women national renown. They belonged to wider networks of female practitioners and were affiliated with both local and national music clubs. However, the color line delimited their careers: Price largely operated in Chicago's Black classical music scene, while Sturkow Ryder belonged to the white mainstream. Today Sturkow Ryder's compositions are less well known and out of print; there are, as yet, no readily available commercial recordings. Conversely, advances in Price scholarship have brought landmark works into publication and recorded media.