Margaret Bonds, an influential Chicago composer, gets a gravestone, at last

Composer and pianist Margaret Bonds was a trailblazer. In 1933, she became the first Black musician to solo with the Chicago Symphony. She composed spiritual arrangements that became favorites of the superstar opera singer Leontyne Price, and had her music performed on prime-time television and by major American orchestras.

Bonds died of a heart attack in 1972, shortly after turning 59. She was buried in south suburban Glenwood alongside her mother — also an influential music teacher on the South Side, where Bonds grew up and spent her early career. Despite her stature in American music history, however, Bonds’ own grave is unmarked.

That will soon change. This weekend, Northwestern University — Bonds’ alma mater — hosts a ceremony and performance dedicating a new headstone. A rendering of the marker will be shown to the public, then installed later this year.

Malcolm J. Merriweather, a specialist in Bonds’ music who leads the New York Philharmonic Chorus, says it came to his attention that the late composer did not have a headstone during a conversation with her great-niece last year. Along with Bonds’ descendant, Merriweather used his personal funds to pay for the headstone outright, which included proceeds from his own arrangements of Bonds’ music.

“I think a characteristic of Black life is making sure those who have gone before us are taken care of,” Merriweather said. “We both decided that we were going to make it happen for this incredible composer, educator, pianist and performer that has inspired so many of us in our careers.”

Merriweather then teamed up with Sidney Jackson, CEO of the Chicago Sinfonietta, to amplify the effort and organize a dedication ceremony. The Sinfonietta has championed Bonds’ music, most recently her “Montgomery Variations,” composed after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. According to Jackson, many musicians participating in this weekend’s concert are donating their time for the cause.

“It's always been Sinfonietta’s mission to champion composers and artists of color as well as women. To honor Margaret Bonds’ legacy with this project was a natural fit,” Jackson said.

The effort recalls a similar one to install a marker on the grave of composer Florence Price, who provided essential mentorship to Bonds as a fellow Black female composer living on Chicago’s South Side. Price is also buried in the south Chicago suburbs, at Lincoln Cemetery in Blue Island.

Bonds studied at Chicago Musical College before enrolling at Northwestern University at just 16. After getting a bachelor’s and master’s at Northwestern, she pursued further study at The Juilliard School in New York City. She lived and worked there as well as Los Angeles, where she died.

Bonds’ years at Northwestern were unhappy ones. She was not permitted to live or practice piano on campus, like her white peers. She sought refuge at the Evanston Public Library, whose basement bookshelves became something of an escape. There, she stumbled upon Langston Hughes’ “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” for the first time.

“I was in this prejudiced university, this terribly prejudiced place,” she reflected later, “and I know that poem helped save me.”

Hughes would become her most important collaborator and a dear friend. She frequently set his writing to music, including “The Ballad of the Brown King,” which CBS featured in a 1960 Christmas broadcast.

Generations later, in 2003, pianist Toni-Marie Montgomery became the first Black person and the first woman to lead Northwestern’s Bienen School of Music — the same institution Bonds passed through decades earlier. Before she retired in 2023, Montgomery kept a picture of Bonds in her office.

“When I think of anyone who looks like me going to a historically white institution in the 1930s, I just think it's amazing,” she said.

Friday’s dedication concert at Northwestern’s Pick-Staiger Concert Hall will feature Chicago Sinfonietta musicians, as well as guest singers. The Kenwood United Church of Christ will host a panel with Bonds performers and researchers the following day. Both are free and open to the public. RSVPs and more information are available at chicagosinfonietta.org.