“Adoration” (Price, arr. Fine)

[Florence Price, “Adoration,” arranged by Elaine Fine. MAP String Ensemble. Catherine Birke, conductor. Alice Tully Hall, New York. May 4, 2024.]

Happily, there’s an audience video of a beautiful, deeply moving performance.

Related reading
A handful of “Adoration” posts

A streaming “Adoration”

The Juilliard School’s MAP String Ensemble will perform Elaine Fine’s arrangement of Florence Price’s “Adoration” tonight in concert. You can watch and listen from this page at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. N.B.: the concert will not be archived for later viewing.

Elaine’s name does not appear on the program but will be announced from the stage. Elaine is a Juilliard grad, so this performance will be especially meaningful to her. Her arrangements of “Adoration” (a work in the public domain) have done much to draw attention to Florence Price’s music.

You can find Elaine’s arrangments of “Adoration,” all freely shared, in the International Music Score Library Project.

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7:35 p.m. (Central): Nothing is streaming. Juilliard messed up.

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May 5: The conductor sent Elaine the wrong link. That’s why we missed the livestream.

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May 6: Happily, there’s an audience video of a beautiful, deeply moving performance.

[Florence Price, “Adoration,” arranged by Elaine Fine. MAP String Ensemble. Catherine Birke, conductor. Alice Tully Hall, New York. May 4, 2024.]

Related reading
A handful of “Adoration” posts

“Adoration” again

The digital radio station Classic FM has a list: fifteen pieces for anyone beginning to listen to classical music. Coming in at a number ten, Florence Price’s “Adoration”: “Originally composed for church organ, it was arranged for violin and piano by Elaine Fine.”

Elaine has also arranged “Adoration” for viola, cello, flute, clarinet, and tuba (each with piano), six violas, violin soloist and orchestra, string orchestra, and orchestra. A German music publication called Elaine “wohl die Pionierin der weiten Welt der Adoration-Adaptionen” — “probably the pioneer of the wide world of ‘Adoration’ adaptations.” She’s made all her arrangements of this (public domain) composition available at no cost through the IMSLP.

Elaine is always reluctant to toot her own horn, so I am tooting it for her. Toot toot. And now I will return the horn to its case to await new news.

Related reading
A few more “Adoration” posts

Elaine Fine, “Adoration” arranger

The online music-magazine Van (as in Beethoven) has an article by Felix Linsmeier about Florence Price’s “Adoration”: “Das Über-Orgel-Stück”. Or in (Google’s) translation, “The Over-Organ Piece.” The German title is a translation of Elaine’s characterization of “Adoration” as a “super-organ piece.”

The article credits Elaine as “wohl die Pionierin der weiten Welt der Adoration-Adaptionen” — “probably the pioneer of the wide world of ‘Adoration’ adaptations.” Elaine has arranged “Adoration” for violin, viola, cello, flute, clarinet, and tuba (each with piano), six violas, violin soloist and orchestra, string orchestra, and orchestra. She’s made all her arrangements of this (public domain) composition available at no cost through the IMSLP.

It’s good to see Florence Price’s music getting new attention in the twenty-first century. And it’s good to see an arranger — especially this one — get some recognition for her work. Give the composer some. And give the arranger some too.

Here, from 2020, is Elaine’s first arrangement of “Adoration,” for violin and piano, with the eminent violinist Augustin Hadelich at the piano and thirty-seven other musicians.

“Adoration” again

[“Adoration,” by Florence Price, arranged by Elaine Fine. Randall Goosby, violin. Zhu Wang, piano.]

Here’s “Adoration” again, this time with audio and video. And this time the text under the video at YouTube credits Elaine as the arranger.

A Fine Price

[“Adoration,” by Florence Price, arranged by Elaine Fine. Randall Goosby, violin. Zhu Wang, piano.]

Elaine just learned that her arrangement of Florence Price’s “Adoration” for violin and piano will appear on violinist Randall Goosby’s first album, Roots (Decca), to be released on June 25. HIs performance, with pianist Zhu Wang, has been released on YouTube as a calling card for the album.

This performance of “Adoration” is the first recording of Elaine’s arrangement. But “Adoration” seems to be everywhere in this grief-stricken time. Last July a string orchestra in Chicago played “Adoration” (Elaine’s arrangement) as part of a musical vigil for Elijah McClain, the violinist killed by police in Aurora, Colorado.

[Price wrote “Adoration” for organ. How was Elaine able to make an arrangement? The piece is in the public domain in the United States. Elaine’s arrangements of “Adoration” for duos and for string orchestra are available in the IMSLP under a Creative Commons license.]

Florence Price’s “Adoration”

Augustin Hadelich at the piano, with thirty-seven other musicians, performing Florence Price’s “Adoration.” It’s a piece for organ, arranged for violin and piano by our household’s composer and arranger Elaine Fine. It’s a beautiful project. My response to these performances in this year of sorrows is beyond words.

Fine’s Price

Fambly excitement: the violinist Augustin Hadelich has invited violinists everywhere to record themselves playing the violin part from Elaine’s arrangement of Florence Price’s “Adoration,” a piece for organ that Elaine arranged for violin and piano. Augustin will play the piano part, choose from various violin performances, and sync the results.

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An Augustin Hadelich Tiny Desk Concert