Margaret Bonds

thumb|Margaret Bonds Margaret Allison Majors (March 3, 1913 – April 26, 1972) was an American composer, pianist, arranger, 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 spirituals and frequent collaborations with Langston Hughes. She 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, only the second African American woman in classical music to be elected to full membership in ASCAP, and the first woman, Black or white, to win three awards from ASCAP. Quotes I realized, very young, that I was the link … between Negro composers of the past. And now, when I sit in the Philharmonic Hall or any of those places, I hear the young Negroes today, … [and] I think, if anything, if I deserve any credit at all, it’s that I have stuck to my own ethnic material and worked to develop it. Margaret Bonds: Composer and Activist-.GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LIBRARRY (4 January 2017) External links Category:1913 births Category:1972 deaths Category:Composers from the United States Category:20th-century African-American women