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John Michael Cooper
Nov 25 min read
A BOND OF DISTINCTION
Kamala Harris's housing initiative reflects the influence of Rev. Hamilton Boswell, nephew of Margaret Bonds & grandson of Dr. Monroe Majors
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John Michael Cooper
Oct 53 min read
A FLORENCE PRICE POSTHUMOUS PREMIERE
Moods for Flute, Clarinet, and Piano at the International Florence Price Festival NO ONE has been more assiduous about ensuring that the...
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John Michael Cooper
Sep 24 min read
REDISCOVERING WILL DIXON AT 145
The latter-day rediscovery of musical and theatrical polymath Will Dixon offers today's world a much-needed opportunity -- and a challenge
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John Michael Cooper
Feb 167 min read
SEQUINA DUBOSE: FROM “BLURRED LINES,” A MESSAGE CRYSTAL CLEAR (pt. 1 of 2)
In some ways, the year 2023 was a year of revanchism and regression in classical music. Just a few years earlier, many voices –...
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John Michael Cooper
Jul 15, 20239 min read
RIDDLED WITH MISTAKES
In the last few years, a music-publishing industry that historically has resolutely ignored compositions by composers of color and women...
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John Michael Cooper
Jun 26, 20235 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...
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John Michael Cooper
Jun 24, 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...
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John Michael Cooper
Mar 26, 20234 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...
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John Michael Cooper
Mar 24, 20234 min read
MARGARET BONDS, LANGSTON HUGHES, AND THE JOY OF “JOY”:
A Conspirare Premiere and a Gratuitous Youthful Photo Langston Hughes’s poem Joy was first published in the collection The Weary Blues...
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John Michael Cooper
Feb 19, 20233 min read
A HISTORIC RE-ENACTMENT
Margaret Bonds’s Montomery Variations and Credo on the Same Program with the Hartford Chorale and Hartford Symphony Orchestra Margaret...
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John Michael Cooper
Jan 20, 20236 min read
A COMPOSITIONAL COLLABORATION(?) BETWEEN MARGARET BONDS AND FLORENCE PRICE
Sleep Song (text by Joyce Kilmer) Have you ever been in a crowd or out in public and heard a voice that you immediately recognize, even...
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John Michael Cooper
Dec 20, 20223 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,...
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John Michael Cooper
Dec 12, 20222 min read
A MEMORIAL PERFORMANCE FOR FLORENCE B. PRICE
The Second Violin Concerto in 1953 It’s generally said that Florence Price’s moving and innovative Second Violin Concerto was premiered...
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John Michael Cooper
Dec 11, 20222 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...
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John Michael Cooper
Nov 19, 20224 min read
MARGARET BONDS: “NO MAN HAS SEEN HIS FACE” (1968)
Fifty-one-year-old Owen Brady was found unconscious and riddled with bullets inside a wrecked and burning car that had crashed into the...
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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
Jul 1, 20223 min read
“I DEDICATED IT TO MOTHER”
On the Origins of He’s Got the Whole World in His Hand by Margaret Bonds Margaret Bonds is justly celebrated for her inspired and...
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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
May 28, 20228 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...
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John Michael Cooper
May 17, 20222 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...
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