Margaret Bonds
Black History Month
Margaret Bonds
Born: March 3rd, 1913
Died: 1972
Occupation: Composer, Pianist, Arranger, Teacher and Activist
Most Famous For: Popular arrangements of African-American spirituals and frequent collaborations with Langston Hughes
Bonds father was an active force in the civil rights movement as a physician and writer whilst her mother was a church musician and member of the National Association of Negro Musicians. Margaret was close to both of her parents and it is likely that they influenced her own work as a musician.
Childhood:
When Margaret was four years old her parents divorced and Magaret grew up in her mothers home. Her house was frequently visited by black musicians of the era including Abbie Mitchell and composers Florence Price and Will Marion Cook. These visits became influential to her future musical studies and career. Bonds wrote her first composition Marquette Street Blues by the time she was five.
Margaret played the piano with her mother from an early age - by 8 years old, she was studying at the Coleridge-Taylor Music School. She studied composition with Florence Price and William Dawson.
Education:
In 1929, she was admitted to Northwestern University where she could study but was not able to live or use their facilities. It was her first direct exposure to racism. Three years later, she won the prestigious Wanamaker award for her song “Sea Ghost”. In 1934, she graduated Northwestern with a master’s degree in Music.
In 1934 also, she became the first African American to perform with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and was the first featured pianist for the Woman’s Symphony Orchestra of Chicago’s performance of Price’s Piano Concerto in D Minor. She continued to refine her composing skills after this through working with Will Marion cook and Abbie Mitchell. She made a living by teaching piano. She attempted to open a music academy in Chicago however this was unsuccessful and she relocated to New York in 1939.
Life in New York:
Bond had become actively involved, both in composing and playing the piano, in the musical theatre life within a year of arriving in New York. She continued to study composition privately with Roy Harris and Djane Herx at Julliard. One of her biggest works during this period is “Troubled Water” from the Spiritual Suite for piano.
Langston Hughes:
During the 1950s, many of Bonds’ compositions were based on the poems of Langston Hughes. The song cycles from this period include Songs of the Seasons and Three Dream Portraits as well as music for the Hughes play Shakespeare in Harlem. Bonds’ Christmas Cantata Ballad of the Brown King also uses words from Hughes’ poems and was televised by CBS in December 1960. This led to more commissions including requests from Leontyne Price and Betty Allen. One of Bonds’ most well known settings was “He’s got the Whole World in His Hand”, composed for Prince in 1963.
Tragic Ending:
Bonds’ life was filled with many professional successes but also personal tragedies which greatly affected her. Her mother died in 1957 and Hughes died only ten year later. She increasingly relied on alcohol to help her cope with her depression. Many people close to the composer believed that the increased use of alcohol was a direct cause of the heart attack that Bonds suffered which killed her in 1972. She is buried next to her mother’s grave in Chicago.
Works of Margaret:
Troubled Water
Dream Variation
Three Dream Portraits
To a Brown Girl Dead
Minstrel Man
You can Tell The world
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Wings over Broadway
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