Synopsis

Today marks the birth in 1913 of American composer Margaret Bonds. Her mother was a church musician in Chicago; her father was a physician and one of the founders of a medical association for Black physicians denied membership in the American Medical Association.

One of the visitors to Bonds’ childhood home was composer Florence Price, with whom she studied composition. At 16, Bonds became one of the few Black students enrolled at Northwestern University, although she was not allowed to live on campus. At the 1933 World’s Fair, Bonds performed Price’s Piano Concerto with the Chicago Symphony, becoming the first African-American woman soloist to appear with a major American orchestra.

After earning her master’s degree, she moved to New York to study at the Juilliard School. She met and became a close friend of poet Langston Hughes, with whom she collaborated on many projects.

Bonds wrote about 200 works, but only 47 were published during her lifetime, and only about 75 of her scores are known today. The rest exist as privately held manuscripts scattered all over the country.

One of her best-known works is Troubled Water, a solo piano fantasia on the spiritual “Wade in the Water.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Margaret Bonds (1913-1972): ‘Troubled Water’; Joel Fan, piano; Reference Recordings RR-119