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John Michael Cooper
May 17, 20223 min read
ON JAMES MONROE TROTTER AND HIS "MUSIC AND SOME HIGHLY MUSICAL PEOPLE" (Part 1)
[This is the first 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
Apr 30, 20224 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...
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John Michael Cooper
Apr 23, 20223 min read
THE VOICE OF MARGARET BONDS
Reflecting on Her Recorded Interview with James V. Hatch Most commentaries on Margaret Bonds either quote or refer to this passage: I was...
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John Michael Cooper
Mar 29, 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...
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John Michael Cooper
Mar 19, 20223 min read
THE WORLD PREMIERE OF FLORENCE PRICE’S FIRST CHORAL-ORCHESTRAL COMPOSITION
The Song of Hope sounds at Ithaca College under the baton of Michael Stern [This post is occasioned by the world première of Florence B....
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John Michael Cooper
Mar 11, 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...
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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
Feb 4, 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...
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John Michael Cooper
Jan 22, 20224 min read
LAMENT AND BENEDICTION
The Last Two Movements of Margaret Bonds’s Montgomery Variations and the 2022 Defeat of Voting Rights Legislation This past week, Senate...
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John Michael Cooper
Jan 13, 20225 min read
THE VIOLIN AS STORYTELLER
Florence Price's Chamber Works for Violin and Piano When Florence B. Price graduated from the New England Conservatory in 1906, she held...
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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
Dec 13, 20212 min read
TWO POSTHUMOUS REVIVALS OF MARGARET BONDS AND LANGSTON HUGHES: AFRICAN DANCE (Danse africaine)
Performances by Greg Watkins and Members of the CAAPA Chorale, November 14, 2021; and Anton Nel and Members of Conspirare, February 15,...
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John Michael Cooper
Aug 28, 20214 min read
FLORENCE PRICE V. LANGSTON HUGHES AT THE “FEET O’ JESUS”
Langston Hughes’s relationship with the Christian church was . . . complicated. Except that it wasn’t. While he acknowledged that the...
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John Michael Cooper
Apr 24, 20217 min read
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...
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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...
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John Michael Cooper
Apr 1, 20217 min read
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...
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John Michael Cooper
Mar 7, 20213 min read
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...
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John Michael Cooper
Feb 11, 20215 min read
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...
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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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