Margaret Bonds

Composer, pianist, teacher, and social-justice activist Margaret Bonds fought against racism, sexism, and economic injustice throughout her career, amassing a portfolio of social-justice compositions unrivalled in eloquence and originality which challenged longstanding barriers between Black and White, male and female, popular and classical. During her lifetime the political economy of music publishing consigned most of her music to manuscript dissemination, and since her death -- despite the enduring popularity of works such as He's Got the Whole World in His Hand and The Ballad of the Brown King -- her success in transcending the barriers she faced as an African American and a woman has been obscured by the forces of racism and sexism in concert life, which, together with White- and male-dominated music historiography, have viewed her life and work through the lens of specious, racist, and sexist tropes.

This book draws on an unprecedented mass of archival evidence to set aside those tropes and offer a fresh portrait of Margaret Bonds. Examining her published and unpublished music, it shows how the child prodigy rose to become the first African American woman whose music was performed widely in Africa; one of the first African American women whose music was broadcast on European radio; the first African American woman and pianist to perform with a major U.S. orchestra; the second African American woman in classical music to attain full membership in ASCAP; the first woman Black or White to win not one or two, but three, awards from that predominantly White and male organization; the lasting musical voice of Langston Hughes; and the teacher of other notables including Ned Rorem and Cheryl Wall. It thus shows how the confluence of natural genius, matrilineal and racial pride, faith, and support from the community of African American artists, intellectuals, and institutions enabled Margaret Bonds to become one of the most extraordinary figures in all of twentieth-century music.

In response to the increasing globalization of music, the Composers across Cultures series, formerly the Master Musicians series, seeks to explore the inexhaustible diversity of music, and its common links to our shared humanity.