25 Facts About Margaret Bonds

Margaret Allison Bonds was an American composer, pianist, arranger, and teacher.

Margaret Bonds was the first African American woman to perform with the all-White and all-male Chicago Symphony Orchestra, one of the first African American women to have her music broadcast on European radio, the first African American woman to have her music performed widely in Africa.

Margaret Bonds's father, Monroe Alpheus Majors, was an active force in the civil rights movement as a physician and writer.

Margaret Bonds's work included founding a medical association for black physicians who were denied membership in the American Medical Association on the basis of race.

Margaret Bonds's mother, Estella C Bonds, was a church musician and member of the National Association of Negro Musicians.

Margaret Bonds died on April 26,1972, in Los Angeles, California.

In 1929, at the young age of 16, Margaret Bonds began her studies at Northwestern University, where she earned both her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees in piano and composition.

Margaret Bonds was one of the few Black students at Northwestern University; the environment was hostile, racist, and nearly unbearable.

Margaret Bonds moved to New York City after graduating from Northwestern University.

Margaret Bonds pursued lessons with Nadia Boulanger, who upon looking at her work said that she needed no further study and refused to teach her.

However, it is inconclusive whether Boulanger truly thought Margaret Bonds had no need of further instruction or was acting from a position of racial prejudice.

Hughes and Margaret Bonds became great friends after meeting in person in 1936, and she set much of his work to music.

Margaret Bonds was active in her career throughout her studies at Northwestern University.

Margaret Bonds made her solo performing debut at Town Hall on February 7,1952.

Margaret Bonds lived in Harlem, and worked on many music projects in the neighborhood.

Margaret Bonds helped to establish a Cultural Community Center, and served as the minister of music at a church in the area.

Margaret Bonds returned to New York in March, 1943, and would remain there until October 1967.

Margaret Bonds was writing other works during this period of her career: Three Dream Portraits for voice and piano, again setting Hughes' poetry, were published in 1959.

Margaret Bonds shared the completed work with Ned Rorem, a close friend and former student, in 1964.

Margaret Bonds eventually dedicated the work to Martin Luther King Jr.

Margaret Bonds had been deeply disturbed by the Watts Rebellion in Los Angeles in 1965, and early in 1966 she began clearing her calendar of obligations in New York.

Margaret Bonds died unexpectedly a few months later, shortly after her 59th birthday.

Margaret Bonds died four years before the Copyright Act of 1976, so her estate could not benefit from the intellectual property rights that later composers' estates have in their works.

Margaret Bonds did much to promote the music of black musicians.

Margaret Bonds connected her father's political activism with her mother's sense of musicianship.