Local Composer’s Arrangement Performed by Vienna Philharmonic

This past June, the Vienna Philharmonic gave its annual Summer Night Concert, a free, open-air performance in the landscape park and gardens of Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria. Under the baton of Swiss conductor Lorenzo Viotti, Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel was featured in arias from Boito’s Mefistofele and Verdi’s Falstaff, as well as the finale from Wagner’s Das Rheingold and Tevye’s song from Fiddler on the Roof. 

Among this illustrious international company was a local name: Elaine Fine, a Charleston resident, composer, teacher, multi-instrumentalist, and longtime member of the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra. The Vienna Philharmonic included Fine’s orchestral arrangement of Florence Price’s Adoration in the concert, which will be broadcast on PBS Great Performances this Friday, August 28 at 8 pm. 

Fine’s arrangement of Price’s piece has brought the once-obscure piece back into circulation. Written in 1951 and originally scored for organ, Adoration was one of Price’s final compositions, but it hearkens back to her early days accompanying silent films in the 1920s. The manuscript was found in 2009 among dozens of scores, letters, and diary fragments in Price’s summer house in rural Kankakee County. 

The house had long been abandoned and was in desperate shape when Vicki and Darrell Gatwood purchased it for renovation. In addition to a hole in the roof, sunken floors, and overgrown grass, the property had been vandalized. Thieves stole Price’s piano but fortunately left her papers strewn on the floor. 

The new owners could have easily just thrown them out, but a recurring name caught their eye: Florence Price. They looked her up and discovered she had been a composer of note in Chicago. They donated the collection of papers to the University of Arkansas in Little Rock, where Price was born, substantially adding to Price’s catalogue of known works.

Fine has created numerous arrangements of Adoration for various combinations of instruments. Her version for violin and piano has been recorded several times. Other people have since orchestrated the piece, but the Vienna Philharmonic chose Fine’s version. The Price composition and Elaine’s arrangements are all in the public domain and available on IMSLP.

Fine explains how she came to know Price’s Adoration and how the arrangement came to be:

“I remember looking at Florence Price’s original organ setting of Adoration for the first time in the winter of 2013, and being blown away by what I saw. I immediately made a setting of it for violin and piano and brought it to my friend John David Moore’s house to play it through. We decided to include it on the concert we were planning for February 28, 2014.

The two of us were the only people who knew it as a piece for violin and piano. And that concert increased the number of Adoration cognoscenti by a few dozen.

I decided to make a string orchestra version of the piece for our local Summer Strings orchestra and shared that arrangement, as well as the violin and piano arrangement, on IMSLP, keeping it in the public domain. The number of musicians who enjoyed playing the piece increased exponentially. And the number of people who enjoyed listening increased exponentially as well.

During her lifetime, Florence Price never got the kind of recognition she deserved for her exquisite work. The idea of the Vienna Philharmonic including a piece written by her on one of their concerts would, I am certain, have been something far beyond her wildest dreams.

And having an arrangement of mine being performed by the Vienna Philharmonic is nothing I could ever have imagined in my wildest dreams.”

You can read more of Fine’s musings on Price’s Adoration on her blog.

Tune into WILL-TV at 8 pm on Friday, August 28, or stream on the PBS app to watch the Vienna Philharmonic’s Summer Night Concert 2026.