Margaret Bonds for kids: her life, her music, and what to play first

Margaret Bonds was an American composer and pianist who lived from 1913 to 1972. She grew up in Chicago in a house full of musicians and poets. At 20, she became the first Black soloist to play with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She wrote songs, piano pieces, and large works for choir, many of them with words by her friend, the poet Langston Hughes. The best first piece for a child is “Troubled Water.”

Quick facts

• Born: 1913, in Chicago, Illinois
• Died: 1972, in Los Angeles, California
• Era: Modern
• Played: piano
• Known for: “Troubled Water,” songs on poems by Langston Hughes, and the Christmas cantata The Ballad of the Brown King

The life in short

Bonds’s mother was a church organist and a music teacher. Their home in Chicago was a meeting place for Black artists, writers, and musicians. Margaret wrote her first piece at five.

As a teenager, she studied piano and composition with Florence Price, who was a family friend. Price even lived in the Bonds home for a time.

Bonds went to Northwestern University, near Chicago. She was one of only a few Black students, and she was not allowed to live on campus or to use some of its buildings. In the library one day, she found a poem by Langston Hughes, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” She said later that the poem helped her feel secure. She earned two degrees there.

In 1933, at the World’s Fair in Chicago, she played as the piano soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The next year, she played Florence Price’s piano concerto with an orchestra of women.

She met Langston Hughes in person in 1936, and they became close friends. She set many of his poems to music over the next 30 years.

In 1939, she moved to New York. She played concerts, taught, wrote for the theater, and led a church music program in Harlem. Read Harlem Renaissance music for kids. In her last years, she lived in Los Angeles and worked with young people at a community arts center.

What the music sounds like

Bonds mixed three kinds of music she loved: spirituals, jazz, and European classical music. A piece may open with the tune of a spiritual, slide into jazz chords, and end with the power of a Romantic piano piece.

Her songs fit the rhythm of spoken words. Hughes’s poems sound natural when they are sung to her music.

Pieces to play first

“Troubled Water.” A piano piece built on the spiritual “Wade in the Water.” The left hand rolls like a current, and the tune rides on top. It is the last part of her Spiritual Suite.

“The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” Her setting of the Hughes poem she found in the library. A voice sings over deep, flowing piano chords.

“He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” Her arrangement of the spiritual, written for the famous singer Leontyne Price.

The Ballad of the Brown King. A Christmas piece for choir, soloists, and orchestra, with words by Hughes. It tells of Balthazar, one of the three kings who came to Bethlehem.

Things to do together

Hear the song first. Sing or play “Wade in the Water.” Then play “Troubled Water” and raise a hand each time the tune appears.

Read, then listen. Read “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” aloud. It is short. Then hear it sung. Ask which words the music makes stronger.

Sing along. Most children know “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” Sing it, and then listen to her concert version.

Poem to song. Pick a short poem your child likes. Say it in rhythm, and then try singing it on two or three notes.

Teacher and student

Florence Price taught Margaret Bonds, and the two stayed friends for life. Bonds played Price’s music in concerts and helped it reach audiences. Much of Bonds’s own music was not published in her lifetime. Musicians are finding and printing it now. Read Florence Price for kids.

Print and play

Fill in a composer study notebook page for Margaret Bonds. Read about more composers in Black composers for kids and women composers for kids. For another composer who brought jazz into concert music, read Gershwin for kids.

For more composers by era, see classical composers for kids.