Biography
Margaret Allison Bonds, a Chicago native, was born to Estella C. Bonds Majors and Dr. Monroe Alpheus Majors on March 3, 1913. With musical influences from her parents, Bonds quickly found a love for music in her youth. Her mother worked as the primary organist at the only church in Chicago where African-Americans could work as paid musicians in the 1920s: Berean Baptist Church. Her daughter showed musical promise and participated in organizations such the Chicago Music Association.1 At the age of nineteen, Bonds became a professional composer and her career as a concert pianist began at the age of 20.
Margaret Bonds composed in large musical forms or structures, identifiable with the early twentieth century such as the symphony and oratorio. During her career she was praised for her solo piano and vocal compositions, which she composed in four major styles: African-American spirituals, jazz/popular songs, musical theatre, and art songs. Her solo vocal compositions intertwine the use of American poetry and musical characteristics found in jazz. More than half of Bonds’s solo vocal works feature the poetry of Harlem Renaissance writer, artist, and poet, Langston Hughes. Bonds’ also incorporated the work of artists such as Arna Bontemps, Fisk University’s head librarian during the 1940s to mid 1960s2, Marjorie May, and Edmund Penney.3
Seeking to continue her education in the arts, Bonds attended Northwestern University from 1929 to 1934 where she studied composition and piano. Due to laws of segregation, Bonds was not permitted to eat in the university dining halls, swim in the university pools, or participate in campus sports teams. Despite social injustice, Bonds achieved extraordinary success while attending Northwestern. In 1933, she obtained her Bachelors of Arts in Music. In June of that same year, Bonds performed John Alden Carpenter’s Concertino with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra making her, at 20 years old, the first African-American piano soloist to perform with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. During this time, Bonds also worked as a pianist and composer at the Negro Dance Art Studio in Chicago, founded by African-American dancer and choreographer Katherine Dunham, a fellow Rosenwald fellow recipent who used her fellowship to pursue the anthropological study of dance in Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, and Trinidad between 1935 and 1936.4
Amidst her performances and work opportunities, Bonds applied for the Julius Rosenwald Fellowship to pursue a Master of Music degree at Northwestern University. She identified a dormant talent in the African-American community that required the attention of educated professionals to train black musicians. The necessity for teachers to uplift black musical potential via classical training propelled Bonds to pursue her Masters and subsequently open doors for the black race to take its place creatively and artistically among others. Coupled closely with the attitudes of African-American artists during the 1920s and 1930s, Bonds saw the window of black prosperity in America tied to the creation and appreciation of the Negro artist. Upon receiving the Rosenwald Fellowship with an outstanding piano performance, Margaret Bonds was able to complete her studies. She continued her solo teaching occupations and graduated from Northwestern University with a Master of Music degree on May 23, 1934. In 1939, Margaret moved to New York City and continued to study piano and composition at the Juilliard School of Music.
Margaret Bonds’ life work as a scholar has resulted in the deterioration of racial professional barriers while advancing the civil and artistic experience of the Black community in early 20th century America. Bonds broke through the confines of racial prejudice with her achievements: She became the first African-American woman to perform as a featured soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Women’s Symphony, the WNYC Orchestra, and the Scranton Philharmonic Orchestra. Her contributions to the world of music and the American society have inspired generations of African American musicians. Bonds became a memer of the National Association of Negro Musicians and formed the Margaret Bonds Chamber Society, an organization of Black musicians which primarily performed the arrangements or compostions of African American classical composers. The work of this society served her initial desire to cultivate the pure talent of black Americans. Bonds worked relentlessly toward this goal, and her strides not only touched the lives of many musicians but blazed trails for continued social justice in the field of classical music and performance.
*Written by Dartisha L. Mosley
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1. Helen Walker-Hill, “Black Women Composers in Chicago: Then and Now,” Black Music Research Journal 12, no.1 (1992): 10-11.↩
2. “Arna Bontemps: Biography," Arna Wendell Bontemps Collection Papers, 1934-1965, John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library Special Collections, Fisk University, Nashville, TN, USA.↩
3. Alethea N. Kilgore, “The Life and Solo Works of Margaret Allison Bonds (1913-1972)” (Doctor of Music treatise, Florida State University, 2013), 1-2.↩
4. Vèvè A. Clark "Katherine Dunham's Tropical Revue." Black American Literature Forum 16, no. 4 (1982): 147-52.↩