Margaret Bonds
March 3, 1913 – April 26, 1972
African American pianist, arranger, composer, and teacher
One of the first Black composers and performers to gain recognition in the United States, she is best remembered today for her popular arrangements of African-American spiritual music and frequent collaborations with Langston Hughes.
Margaret Allison Majors Bond was born on March 3, 1913, in Chicago, Illinois. Her father was Mr. Monroe Majors,
was a physician, lecturer, and author who also was in politic. Her mother, was Mrs. Estella Bonds, she was a
trained musician who taught piano and was the head of the church choir. Her parents divorced in 1917. She grew
up with her mother who had many socialites around.
Her mother started training her musically by the age of eight; she had progressed to studying at the Coleridge-
Taylor Music School. Eventually, she studied composition with Florence Price and William Dawson. In 1929, she
was admitted to Northwestern University, where she was allowed to study but not to live or use their facilities. The
racism in that era was one of the worst she has experience as an affluent African American. In her own words she
describes in detail the environment felt and what she was feeling at that time as her statements now follow: I was
in this prejudiced university, this terribly prejudiced place–I was looking in the basement of the Evanston Public
Library where they had the poetry. I came in contact with this wonderful poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” and
I’m sure it helped my feelings of security. Because in that poem he Langston Hughes tells how great the black man
is: And if I had any misgivings, which I would have to have–here you are in a setup where the restaurants won’t
serve you and you’re going to college. Three years into her studies, her song, “Sea Ghost,” won the prestigious
Wanamaker award.
She received her Master’s Degree in music from Northwestern in 1934. In the same year she completed her
studies, she became the first African American to perform with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and she was
the featured pianist for the Woman’s Symphony Orchestra of Chicago’s performance of Price’s Piano Concerto in
D Minor.
She continued refining her skills as a composer, working with professional composers such as Will Marion Cook
and his wife, singer Abbie Mitchell. She opened a piano school in Chicago but was unsuccessful the enrollees were
not enough to financially support her. She eventually moved from Chicago and relocated to New York in 1939.
After relocating she began to move on her passion as a pianist and composer of music and became very involved in
the theatrical side of New York in every aspect that she felt she had mastered. She took up private lesson on
composing songs with Roy Harris and Emerson Harper at Julliard School of Music… She toured both as part of a
piano duo and, in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, as soloist playing a variety of classical and contemporary works.
One of her most recorded compositions from this period is “Troubled Water,” from the Spiritual Suite she played
by piano. She composed a number of works using the poems of Langston Hughes. Who she really wanted to meet for it was
his poem that she embraced while in school. She finally met Langston in 1936 and with whom she became close
friends over the years. The body of compositions which she made came from this meeting with Langston which is
as follows: 1965 compositions were Songs of the Seasons and Three Dream Portraits, as well as music for
Langston Hughes play, Shakespeare in Harlem Libretto. She also served as music director for many productions
including writing of two ballets. The debut of Margaret Allison Bonds Christmas cantata, Ballad of the Brown King, which again used words by
Langston Hughes, was televised by CBS in December 1960. Request for her to work with artist such as Leontyne
Price and Betty Allen and many others. One of her most well known compositions was “He’s Got the Whole World
in His Hand,” composed for Price in 1963.When Langston Hughes died in 1967 she was devastated and decided she had to go on with her passion and thatwas the result of her leaving her Husband Lawrence Richardson and her daughter was now of age to be on her
own at 21 years old. She relocated to LA and worked with the Los Angeles Inner City Cultural Center and Repertory
Theater as an n instructor.Despite her many professional successes, the personal tragedies in her life–especially the deaths of her mother in
1957 and Langston Hughes ten years later–profoundly affected her state of emotions and led her to feel
abandoned and depression set into her life. She relied on alcohol to cope with the lost. Acquaintances of the
composer believed that this was a direct cause of the heart attack that killed her on April 26, 1972 at the age of 59.
Margaret Bonds was buried next to her mother’s grave in Chicago.
She was born on March 3, 1913, in Chicago, Illinois, her mother Estella was a church organist and pianist whose home would frequent guests including Florence B. Price and Will Marion Cook. She was very intelligent in her elementary to high school academic
requirements. She furthered her education by enrolling at Northwestern University and received her Bachelor’s Degree and continued graduate studies at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City.
Throughout her career she was an instructor at the American Theater Wing and performed with a number of orchestras, including the Women’s Symphony, the New York Symphony, and the Scranton (Pennsylvania) Philharmonic. Very imperative to note also
that Margaret Bonds was the first Black guest soloist with the Chicago Symphony and the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933.
In 1940, Margaret Bonds married Lawrence Richardson (1911-1990), a probation officer, after moving to New York City in 1939. The couple later had a daughter, Djane Richardson (1946-2011).
Margarete’s works for piano and orchestra are programmatic she was known to incorporate a sense of ethnic identity through her use of jazz harmonies, spiritual materials, and social themes. She became active in the theater, serving as music director for numerous productions and writing two ballets. She also wrote several music-theater works, including Shakespeare in Harlem to a libretto by Langston Hughes; which premiered in 1959.
In 1965, at the time of the Freedom March on Montgomery, Alabama, She also wrote Montgomery Variations for orchestra, dedicating it to Martin Luther King, Jr. Two years later, she moved to Los Angeles, teaching music at the Los Angeles Inner City Institute and at the Inner City Cultural Center from 1968-1972. Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic premiered her Credo for chorus and orchestra in 1972.
When Langston Hughes died in 1967 she was devastated and decided she had to go on with her passion and that was the result of her leaving her Husband Lawrence Richardson and her daughter was now of age to be on her own at 21 years old. She relocated to LA and worked with the Los Angeles Inner City Cultural Center and Repertory Theater as an n instructor.
Despite her many professional successes, the personal tragedies in her life–especially the deaths of her mother in 1957 and Langston Hughes ten years later–profoundly affected her state of emotions and led her to feel abandoned and depression set into her life. She relied on alcohol to cope with the loss. Acquaintances of the composer believed that this was a direct cause of the heart attack that killed her on April 26, 1972, at the age of 59.
Margaret Bonds was buried next to her mother’s grave in Chicago. Later her daughter Djane Richardson born in 1946 passed away in 2011.