Florence Price spent much of the twentieth century as one of American music's most unjustly neglected figures, a Black woman composer whose scores were rediscovered only decades after her death. In February 2026, Minnesota Opera brings her legacy roaring back to life with a new opera that premieres in a state, and a national moment, marked by real tension over identity and belonging.
A rediscovery still unfolding
Price's revival has been one of the most striking stories in classical music in recent years, as orchestras program symphonies and songs that sat unheard for generations. Extending that revival into opera marks a new phase, translating renewed interest in her music into a fresh dramatic work rather than a straightforward concert performance.
Music meeting the moment
The premiere lands in a politically charged environment, and its themes resonate against contemporary debates over immigration, race and who belongs. That timing gives the production an urgency beyond the historical, connecting Price's own experience of exclusion to present-day questions.
- Composer honored: Florence Price, pioneering Chicago composer
- Company: Minnesota Opera
- Premiere: February 2026
- Significance: Extending Price's revival into opera
- Resonance: Themes of identity, belonging and exclusion
Why Price still matters
Price broke barriers in her lifetime, becoming the first Black woman to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra, yet recognition largely came posthumously. Each new performance chips away at that historical injustice, restoring her to a canon that long excluded her.
Opera as reclamation
Staging Price's world through opera does more than revive her notes; it dramatizes the arc of a career defined by both brilliance and erasure. For audiences in Minnesota and beyond, the production offers a chance to encounter a composer whose story is finally being told at the scale her music always deserved.