On an Award-Winning Song by Margaret Bonds No Longer Lost
Margaret Bonds’s 1931 song “The Sea Ghost,” which won a substantial prize in the Rodman Wanamaker Contest in Musical Composition for Composers of the Negro Race in 1932, has often been described as lost – and it and her earlier surviving song (which was written in 1928) have consequently never been heard. They’ve since been recovered, and that recovery not only adds to the body of song we have by the extraordinary Margaret Bonds, but also sheds crucial light on the nature and timeline of her growth as a composer. Last weekend I gave a talk about this at the twenty-fifth anniversary conference of The African American Art Song Alliance, but technological problems compromised that presentation, and Margaret Bonds deserves better.
So I’ve re-recorded it. This lecture includes beautiful performances by soprano Zoe McCray and pianist Elizabeth Hill, and powerful readings of little-known Bonds statements by the estimable Dr. Candace Kerr Johnson.
Comments and questions are most welcome! Some of this material will find its way into my forthcoming biography of Margaret Bonds for the Master Musicians series of Oxford University Press, and your feedback will only improve that product – a biography fifty years past due, one whose challenges are immense, and one that I’m determined to make as good as possible.
My thanks to Dr. Darryl Taylor and The African American Art Song Alliance for the opportunity to write this presentation, and to soprano Zoe McCray, pianist Elizabeth Hill, Dr. Candace Johnson, and Bonds champion Louise Toppin for bringing the beauty and power of Bonds’s genius to life here.
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