John Michael Cooper
A(NOTHER) MARGARET BONDS PREMIERE:
African Dance, on a Text by Langston Hughes, Gets Its Posthumous Premiere This Weekend On Sunday, November 14, 2021, Greg Watkins and the...
top of page
Search
John Michael Cooper
Oct 15, 20212 min read
THE PROGRAM OF THE MONTGOMERY VARIATIONS
The Minnesota Orchestra Has Recorded an Orchestral Masterpiece by Margaret Bonds [Update 11/13/21: The Minnesota Orchestra's recording is...
226 views0 comments
John Michael Cooper
Sep 20, 20214 min read
MARGARET BONDS’S SENIOR RECITAL (1933)
With a Playlist Before 1934, Margaret Bonds publicly programmed only all-White recitals. After 1934 she never did that again. Why the...
138 views0 comments
John Michael Cooper
Aug 5, 20212 min read
“YOU GIVE ME A LIFT”
A Song Lyric by Margaret Bonds Margaret Bonds traveled nearly constantly in her adult life. Even though she maintained a single address...
30 views0 comments
John Michael Cooper
Jul 10, 20213 min read
LIVING VICARIOUSLY THROUGH POEMS:
MARGARET BONDS, EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY, AND LANGSTON HUGHES* * (WITH A CAMEO BY DEBUSSY AND PIERRE LOUŸS) The long, close, and...
59 views0 comments
John Michael Cooper
Jun 17, 20213 min read
A FLORENCE PRICE PREMIERE, MARGARET BONDS, AND A SELF-CORRECTION
This post is a short one, but I hope you’ll find it interesting. In an earlier post I remarked that Florence Price had submitted all four...
187 views2 comments
John Michael Cooper
May 29, 20214 min read
MEANWHILE IN L.A.
Gustavo Dudamel to Conduct Margaret Bonds’s Montgomery Variations in July, 2021 This past weekend was filled with plenty of grim news –...
142 views0 comments
John Michael Cooper
Apr 6, 20219 min read
THE PROBLEM WITH PROGRAMS (Part 2)
Florence Price’s First Symphony, the 1933-34 World’s Fair, and Three Tribbles In the first part of this post I talked about the context...
399 views0 comments
John Michael Cooper
Feb 2, 20212 min read
CELEBRATING MARGARET BONDS, COMPOSER AND PIANIST
A Concert and a Premiere Broadcast by Bass-Baritone Timothy Jones, Pianist Howard Watkins, and ROCO Margaret Bonds (1913-72) is...
65 views0 comments
John Michael Cooper
Jan 24, 20213 min read
AN “AMERICAN TANGO” BY MARGARET BONDS
MARGARET BONDS (1913-72) WAS A CONCERT PIANIST as well as a composer. By the age of eight she had been taking piano lessons for several...
250 views0 comments
John Michael Cooper
Jan 18, 20214 min read
“YES, IT’LL BE ME!”
Margaret Bonds, Langston Hughes, and the Note on Commercial Theater In the chapter titled “When the Negro Was in Vogue” of his 1940...
215 views1 comment
John Michael Cooper
Dec 25, 20203 min read
THE SOUND OF PEACE
A Bright Star, a Dove, and Two Christmas Gifts from Margaret Bonds Margaret Bonds (1913-72) was no stranger to humanity’s never-ending...
174 views0 comments
John Michael Cooper
Dec 12, 20203 min read
“THE LIGHT IS REVEALED”:
A New Reflection on an Unpublished Gospel Song by Margaret Bonds and Langston Hughes “We haven’t any Negro books at all”: this is what...
92 views0 comments
John Michael Cooper
Dec 4, 20204 min read
“SHE HAS A MUSICAL MISSION”:
BRIGHT STAR: A CHRISTMAS SONG, BY MARGARET BONDS AND JANICE LOVOOS Late in 1968, Margaret Bonds published her setting of Janice Lovoos’s...
156 views0 comments
John Michael Cooper
Nov 25, 20205 min read
FLORENCE PRICE AND UNCLE NED
Like CNN’s Don Lemon, Florence Price (1887-1953) did not have an uncle named Ned. Nor did she have an Uncle Joe. I’ll explain that...
91 views0 comments
John Michael Cooper
Nov 10, 20206 min read
“THERE IS GLASS EVERYWHERE”
A Weekend of Triumph for Black Women – and Some Musical Highlights This past weekend, after Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had received more...
273 views0 comments
John Michael Cooper
Aug 30, 20204 min read
#SONGSOFCOMFORT:
A new and consciously LIVE music video of Margaret Bonds's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" offers a fresh look at her musical world.
58 views0 comments
John Michael Cooper
Jul 30, 20203 min read
WHEN THE DOVE ENTERS IN
The newly recovered gospel song "When the Dove Enters In" by Margaret Bonds & Langston Hughes delivers a symbolic message for our own time.
1,345 views0 comments
John Michael Cooper
Jul 26, 20205 min read
OF COMFORT, TRAUMA, AND MUSIC
A new series of videos featuring music of Florence Price and Margaret Bonds shows music's ability to bring comfort and beauty amidst trauma.
255 views0 comments
John Michael Cooper
Jul 20, 20202 min read
TESTIMONY: A #BLACKLIVESMATTER MANIFESTO
41 readers ages 5-81 voice their support for #BlackLivesMatter in a collaborative reading of a Civil Rights manifesto by W.E.B. Du Bois.
59 views0 comments
bottom of page