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“WHERE IS THE FREEDOM IN THE LAND OF THE FREE?”
The painful story of the connections between Elizabeth Keckley and Queens University of Charlotte -- and of a modern Margaret Bonds premiere at the intersection of those two.

John Michael Cooper
Jun 137 min read


“Another Message from the Gods to Man via MARGARET BONDS”:
With roots dating to the mid-1930s, Margaret Bonds's song "Note on Commercial Theater" has finally been published. Here is its story.

John Michael Cooper
Mar 411 min read


RACISM IN ROMANTIC MUSIC (4): CANONICAL SILENCING, AND SOME CONCLUSIONS
As a prefatory exercise for this post, consider the “rule of 4%”: less than four percent of the players in professional orchestras with...

John Michael Cooper
Jun 26, 20235 min read


RACISM IN ROMANTIC MUSIC (3): ARCHIVAL SILENCING
In Parts 1 and 2 of this four-part post I attempted a systems-level analysis of the means and mechanisms (“linchpins”) by which racism...

John Michael Cooper
Jun 25, 20233 min read


RACISM IN ROMANTIC MUSIC (2): SILENCING BY MUSIC PUBLISHERS
In Part 1 of this series of systems-level commentaries on Racism in Romantic Music (RRM), I discussed how the pervasive racism of the...

John Michael Cooper
Jun 24, 20233 min read


RRM – RACISM IN ROMANTIC MUSIC (Part 1 of 4)
Dear Constant Reader, I’ve been absent from this blog for a while, partly because I needed to recharge, partly because I’m currently...

John Michael Cooper
Jun 23, 20237 min read


THE TOMBSTONE’S TALE
The Mother of Florence B. Price The tombstone (a marker, really) is in Achor, Columbiana County, Ohio. On it is the name of Florence...

John Michael Cooper
Mar 26, 20234 min read


A FATHER-DAUGHTER GIFT FOR TODAY
The Margaret Bonds / W.E.B. Du Bois Credo Returns to Its Roots Margaret Bonds’s relationship with her father was complicated but rich –...

John Michael Cooper
Feb 22, 20235 min read


FLORENCE PRICE’S MOTHER AND FATHER SUED THE RAILROAD FOR DISCRIMINATION
Speaking Truth to Power In the late nineteenth century, the railroads were the primary means for shipping goods and materials quickly,...

John Michael Cooper
Dec 20, 20223 min read


A MOST AUSPICIOUS OCCASION
The world premiere of the “revised and extended” version of Margaret Bonds’s The Ballad of the Brown King (December 11, 1960) HISTORY WAS...

John Michael Cooper
Dec 11, 20222 min read


OF HOPE AND NEW BEGINNINGS
A Commencement Letter from Langston Hughes, Shared with Margaret Bonds We are in an age of marches, of collective protests against...

John Michael Cooper
May 31, 20223 min read


ON HARRY T. BURLEIGH, HIS LIFE AND LEGACIES
[This is the fourth in a series of posts of “blogified” short entries from the forthcoming second, enlarged edition of my Historical...

John Michael Cooper
May 28, 20228 min read


ON JAMES MONROE TROTTER AND HIS "MUSIC AND SOME HIGHLY MUSICAL PEOPLE" (Part 2)
[This is the second in a series of posts of “blogified” short entries from the forthcoming second, enlarged edition of my Historical...

John Michael Cooper
May 17, 20222 min read


“UNIVERSITIES, UNIVERSITIES, UNIVERSITIES!” (1)
The Conservatory of the University of Missouri, Kansas City, Brings Margaret Bonds’s Civil-Rights Credo to the Home of Dred Scott’s...

John Michael Cooper
May 1, 20224 min read


THREE IN D.C.
The Voice of Margaret Bonds Rises in Three Events in the U.S. Capital This Weekend The estimable Margaret Bonds’s (1913-72) musical...

John Michael Cooper
Mar 29, 20224 min read


JUDGEMENT DAY:
A Gospel Song by Florence Price and Langston Hughes Gets a Belated First Recording Popular exclamations about the trove of Florence Price...

John Michael Cooper
Mar 11, 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...

John Michael Cooper
Feb 18, 20224 min read


CELEBRATING A FLORENCE PRICE COMPOSITION THAT DIDN’T WIN
Lady Jess and Ric’key Pageot Record the Recently Published Andante con espressione for Violin and Piano The Summer of 1926 was important...

John Michael Cooper
Feb 4, 20224 min read


“THE THREE WISE MEN”:
A Seasonal Blessing in Word and Song from the Pen of W.E.B. Du Bois (1913) W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) was a male womanist as well as an...

John Michael Cooper
Dec 16, 20215 min read


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...

John Michael Cooper
Nov 8, 20214 min read


John Michael Cooper
Jun 137 min read


John Michael Cooper
Jun 79 min read


John Michael Cooper
May 305 min read


John Michael Cooper
Apr 156 min read

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