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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...
John Michael Cooper
Jun 17, 20213 min read
205 views
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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 –...
John Michael Cooper
May 29, 20214 min read
145 views
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THE PROBLEM WITH PROGRAMS (Part 3)
Florence Price’s First Symphony, the 1933-34 World’s Fair, and Three Tribbles (corrected) In Part 1 of this three-part post, I suggested...
John Michael Cooper
Apr 24, 20217 min read
619 views
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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...
John Michael Cooper
Apr 6, 20219 min read
424 views
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THE PROBLEM WITH PROGRAMS (Part 1)
Florence Price’s First Symphony, the 1933-34 World’s Fair, and Three Tribbles Never in my career of writing did I expect that one day I...
John Michael Cooper
Apr 1, 20217 min read
494 views
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THE BEAUTY OF BLACKNESS
Florence B. Price’s “Night” (Text by Bessie Mayle) The poetry, music, and other artworks of the Harlem Renaissance and Chicago Black...
John Michael Cooper
Mar 7, 20213 min read
224 views
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THE SPOKEN POETRY OF FLORENCE B. PRICE
A Recitation of Her Unpublished Song of Hope [updated Feb. 28, 2021] Sometime in 1930, Florence B. Price (1887-1953) wrote a poem titled...
John Michael Cooper
Feb 24, 20213 min read
361 views
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ANOTHER FLORENCE PRICE PREMIERE
Maeve Brophy and one of the Seven Descriptive Pieces for Piano Solo (1927-28) [Updated 15 February 2021] A month or so ago I published...
John Michael Cooper
Feb 13, 20214 min read
333 views
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RACIAL JUSTICE AND AMERICAN PATRIOTISM
Resurrecting a Blacklisted Musical Affirmation of Freedom from 1976 in 2021 [Update (March 8, 2021): The June 13, 2009 revival of...
John Michael Cooper
Feb 11, 20215 min read
92 views
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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...
John Michael Cooper
Feb 2, 20212 min read
66 views
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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...
John Michael Cooper
Jan 24, 20213 min read
263 views
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“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...
John Michael Cooper
Jan 18, 20214 min read
264 views
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COMPOSING FREEDOM:
On Performers’ and Listeners’ Rediscovery of Florence Price’s Clouds (ca. 1947) LIKE ABOUT THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY of the more than three...
John Michael Cooper
Jan 13, 20216 min read
77 views
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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...
John Michael Cooper
Dec 25, 20203 min read
175 views
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“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...
John Michael Cooper
Dec 12, 20203 min read
92 views
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A BOUQUET OF FLORENCE PRICE
In February, 2020, G. Schirmer published a set of three piano pieces by Florence B. Price (1887-1953) under the collective title Three...
John Michael Cooper
Dec 6, 20203 min read
267 views
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“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...
John Michael Cooper
Dec 4, 20204 min read
156 views
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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...
John Michael Cooper
Nov 25, 20205 min read
92 views
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“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...
John Michael Cooper
Nov 10, 20206 min read
274 views
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FLORENCE PRICE AND LANGSTON HUGHES CAST A BALLOT FOR THE WORKING CLASS
The first public performance of a song by Florence Price and Langston Hughes issues a call to action for today's working class to VOTE!
John Michael Cooper
Oct 27, 20205 min read
614 views
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Nov 2, 20245 min read
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