John Michael Cooper
JOLLY JINKS WITH FLORENCE PRICE
Twenty Years Down the Road, a Great Composer Revisits an Early Work and Asks, “What’s in a Name?” There aren’t many students of...
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John Michael Cooper
Nov 11, 20224 min read
COALESCENCE, CULMINATION, AND EMANCIPATION:
Four Early Performances of Margaret Bonds’s Spiritual Suite [This note is about Margaret Bonds’s Spiritual Suite – the surviving magnum...
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John Michael Cooper
Nov 1, 20223 min read
J.S. BACH AND THE HARMONY OF THE SPHERES AT THE ROYAL OBSERVATORY GREENWICH
Pianist Elena Piccione and Romanian Astronomer Dumitru-Dorin Prunariu Enact the Composer’s Worldview on November 4 The notion that all...
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John Michael Cooper
Jun 10, 20225 min read
“I NEVER IMAGINED THAT A WOMAN COULD WRITE SUCH MUSIC!”
On the Extraordinary Mel-Bonis (1858-1937) [This is the fifth in a series of posts of “blogified” short entries from the forthcoming...
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John Michael Cooper
Jun 3, 20222 min read
FLORENCE PRICE’S SCENES OF TENEMENT LIFE
Today witnesses the release of 2022’s second[1] milestone in the recorded legacy of Florence B. Price: the world-premiere recording of...
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John Michael Cooper
Feb 18, 20224 min read
THE CREDO SOUNDS AGAIN
W.E.B. Du Bois’s bold and brilliant civil-rights manifesto Credo was first published in 1904 and republished with revisions at the head...
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John Michael Cooper
Feb 12, 20223 min read
SINCE 1973
On Tuesday, February 15, 2022, at 7:30 p.m. CT, the internationally heralded GRAMMY-winning chorus Conspirare, conducted by...
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John Michael Cooper
Jan 15, 20222 min read
A CLASSICAL BENEFIT RECITAL FEATURING “NEW” MUSIC BY FLORENCE B. PRICE
Pianist Josh Tatsuo Cullen revives a noble tradition with newly published music Students of music history know that until World War I...
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John Michael Cooper
Jan 2, 20222 min read
THE FIRST LIVE RECORDING OF AN AFRO-MODERNIST “COTTON DANCE” (ca. 1940) BY FLORENCE B. PRICE
performed by Michael Lu On New Year’s Eve of the rough-and-tumble year 2021 I got a fabulous musical surprise – 365 days late. The...
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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...
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John Michael Cooper
Feb 13, 20214 min read
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...
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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...
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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...
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John Michael Cooper
Jan 13, 20216 min read
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...
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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...
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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...
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John Michael Cooper
Sep 22, 20202 min read
A NEW PERFORMANCE OF FLORENCE B. PRICE’S FANTASIE NÈGRE NO. 4 IN B MINOR BY DR. ELIZABETH HILL
A virtual concert by Elizabeth Hill (piano) of Florence Price's Fantasie nègre No. 4 and William Grant Still's Seven Traceries .
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John Michael Cooper
Sep 14, 20207 min read
“OUT OF THE CRUCIBLE” OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY
After 82 years, the Fantasie nègre that won Florence Price Honorable Mention in the Wanamaker Contest is making a comeback -- finally.
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John Michael Cooper
Aug 6, 20203 min read
THE JOY OF WHIMSY
Rediscovering Another Facet of Florence Price’s Musical Imagination On July 6, 1949 Florence B. Price composed a short and brilliant...
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John Michael Cooper
Jul 16, 20206 min read
FLORENCE PRICE AND RACIST STEREOTYPES
In two little-known piano suites Florence Price took on popular Black stereotypes by humanizing her subjects through her music.
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