[Margaret
Allison Bonds]
Fredericka King
March 3, 2013 was the Centennial of the birth of Margaret Allison Bonds, the composer and pianist who was the first African-American soloist to perform with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill hosted a March 2–3 Symposium: Margaret Bonds and the Women of the Chicago Renaissance.
The
AfriClassical.com page on Margaret Allison Bonds (1913-1972)
makes extensive use of the research of Dr
.
Dominique-René de Lerma,
http://www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com,
who has compiled a comprehensive Works List for her. Prof. De Lerma
tells us the composer was born in Chicago on March 3, 1913. Margaret
was 4 when her parents divorced, Prof. De Lerma relates. At the age
of 13 she began studying composition with William Levi Dawson and
Florence B. Price, with whom she also studied piano.
Bonds
entered Northwestern University at 16, in 1929. Prof. Rae Linda Brown
wrote the liner notes for the CD Black Diamonds: Althea Waites
Plays Music By African-American Composers, Cambria 1097 (1993).
She describes the importance of the Wanamaker Prize Bonds won in 1932
for her composition Sea Ghost: “Margaret Bonds (1913-1972)
achieved national recognition when she won the Wanamaker Prize in
1932 for the song Sea Ghost, the same contest in which her teacher,
Florence Price, received her coveted awards.”
In
1933 Bonds made history as the first African American soloist to
perform with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Maya Angelou is the
author of the liner notes for William Chapman Nyaho's CD, Senku:
Piano Music by Composers of African Descent; Music Masters 1091
(2003). She writes of the activities of Bonds after finishing her
studies at Northwestern University: “Upon graduation, Margaret
Bonds worked in Chicago performing, composing and collaborating with
writer and poet, Langston Hughes in cantatas, musicals and song
cycles.”
On
Dec. 4, 2010 Al Rudis wrote in the Long Beach Press-Telegram: “The
famous poet and the lesser-known composer collaborated on a work for
piano and voice called 'The Ballad of the Brown King,'
which Bonds later made into a cantata for full chorus, soloists and
orchestra. It premiered in December 1954, in New York City, and for a
while it was performed a lot, mostly in churches. Then it sort of
disappeared. Fast-forward half a century to 2010 in Long Beach, and
the cantata is once again part of the Christmas season, thanks to the
Long Beach Chorale, which performs it Saturday and Dec. 12 at Grace
Presbyterian Church.”
Margaret
Bonds taught theater in both Harlem and Los Angeles, where she moved
in 1967. She remained there until her death in 1972. Her best known
work is the piano composition Troubled Water, which is
found on numerous recordings, including Senku. During the year following the Centennial of the birth of Margaret Bonds, numerous performances made use of her compositions, including a recital at Weill Hall by the pianist Fredericka King, shown above. On January 26, 2014 AfriClassical posted:
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