Spiritual Suite by Margaret Bonds // Mira Walker, piano скачать в хорошем качестве

Spiritual Suite by Margaret Bonds // Mira Walker, piano

Margaret Allison Bonds (1913-1972) was born and raised in Chicago. A highly successful professional pianist, she earned degrees from Northwestern University, and was the first Black soloist to be featured with the Chicago Symphony. She was also an award-winning composer whose self-described style was “jazzy, bluesy, spiritual, and Tchaikovsky rolled into one", though many of her compositions remain lost or unpublished. She was inspired by the visionary work of civil rights activists and artists, and was a collaborator and friend to artists such as Florence Price, Marian Anderson, and Langston Hughes. Bonds was heavily influenced by song and text, setting many of Langston Hughes’s poems to music. She also arranged numerous spirituals for piano and voice. Bonds was dedicated to bringing Black American tradition into her compositions. The Spiritual Suite was written during the 1930s and 40s, and is the largest work for solo piano composed by Bonds. The complete suite consists of three movements: The Valley of the Bones (based on the Spiritual “Dry Bones”), The Bells (based on the Spiritual “Peter Go Ring Dem Bells”), and Troubled Water (based on the Spiritual “Wade in the Water”). Only the final movement, Troubled Water, was published during Bonds’s lifetime, and the complete work was not published in its entirety until 2020, though there is significant evidence that Bonds performed this work herself as a set. Each of the three movements is clearly influenced by jazz, gospel, and virtuosic pianism. The work celebrates Black American tradition by bringing Spiritual music into the piano concert tradition in a way that had never been done before. Information from the research of John Michael Cooper and SMTD Professor Louise Toppin (Schirmer Vocal Reprints, 2020). Margaret Bonds Spiritual Suite, I: The Valley of the Bones based on the spiritual "Dry Bones" Performer: Mira Walker Michigan Recording Project Recorded: May 2023