Florence Robinson lectures at the University of Connecticut

Pianist and professor of music, Florence Robinson received a BM from Southern Illinois University (1950), an MA from Denver University, and a PhD from Southern Illinois University (1963). During her studies, Robinson was the student of well-known conductor and pianist Antonia Brico. Robinson was the first ever African American to become coordinator of Music for Denver Public Schools. In addition, Robinson was named one of Colorado’s “Outstanding Citizens” by the state’s governor, wrote and hosted the “Florence Robinson Show,” as well as hosted the nationally syndicated radio program “The Many Sides of Black Music.” She moved on to become a professor and eventually serving as Professor, Chair of the Music Department, and then Associate Dean of Humanities in the School of the Arts at Clark College and Clark Atlanta University from 1971-1988. Robinson was also the host of the PBS special, “The Music of Black Composers,” with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.

Robinson was an accomplished pianist and accompanied artists in major throughout the United States and abroad. During her tenure at Clark and Clark Atlanta, she served on the advisory committee to the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington , D. C. on behalf of the National Black Music Colloquium and Competition and, in 1988, and she traveled to China to study the music of ethnic Chinese minorities. Her biography is featured in I Can’t Do What?: Voices of Pathfinding Women by Barbara Hutmacher MacLean (1997).

[Obituary: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/tallahassee/name/florence-robinson-...