Margaret Bond's "Sing Aho"

Margaret Bonds was an American composer and pianist who is best known for her adaptations of African American spirituals.

Her early studies with her mother, who attended the Chicago Musical College, led to tuition in piano, composition with Florence Price and others in high school, followed by study at Northwestern University. She also did graduate work at Juilliard. As a student at Northwestern she encountered significant prejudice and discrimination for the first time, but took comfort from her discovery of the poetry of Langston Hughes. She later set many of his poems and corresponded with him extensively.

"Sing Aho" is a biblical choral piece that Bonds created in collaboration with the poet Langston Hughes. In her correspondence with Hughes, Bonds often opened up to him about her struggles with depression and her frustration with the music industry.

Sources:

African Diaspora Music Project

Georgetown University Library