For the first time (and almost certainly also the last), Professor of Music Michael Cooper was quoted at some length in an article by Investor’s Business Daily. Titled “Florence Price Composed Lasting Beauty Amid Horrific Tragedy” and written by Paul Katzeff, the article is in the journal’s “Leaders and Success” column. Cooper’s remarks dealt partly with issues of Price’s biography but mostly with the agency of racist and sexist music publishers in ensuring that Price’s music would be largely forgotten in the decades following her death in 1953. The article can be read here.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper has won the 2025 Pauline Alderman Award from the International Alliance for Women in Music for his book Margaret Bonds: The “Montgomery Variations” and Du Bois “Credo” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023). This was the first book-length study of Margaret Bonds and her music (followed in Spring 2025 by Cooper’s biography of Margaret Bonds published with Oxford University Press). At just 164 pages, it’s a slight book, but not an insubstantial one. Adjudicators praised it for its “exceptional interdisciplinary analysis” and described it as “illuminating,” “monumental,” and “revolutionary.” More information about the honor can be found here and here.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published Six Songs on Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar by Florence B. Price with ClarNan Editions (Fayetteville, AR). Those who know Price’s other songs such as “Sympathy” or “Difference” know that Dunbar’s poetry, which the late Nikki Giovanni described as “peerless,” elicited particularly intense responses from Price’s musical imagination. But these six never-before-published songs shed new light on the beauties that emerged from the convergence of their creative spirits. Two of the songs are in the African American dialect, whose inherent poetry Dunbar famously celebrated, while four are in conventional English; collectively, they trace themes ranging from teem with wit, wisdom, and deeply human experience and emotion, in circumstances ranging from romantic love through despair, to end-of-life longing to be “called home” and rejoin long-departed friends and loved ones. This edition marks Cooper’s 149th publication of previously unknown music by Florence Price since September 2019.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published the first edition of a floral meditation by Florence Price titled Coreopsis with ClarNan Editions (Fayetteville, AR). Price wrote the piece for two pianists at two keyboards, but alongside this, Cooper also included an arrangement for one keyboard and four hands, prepared by Po-Sim Head and Kowoon Lee. Those interested in hearing what the beautiful Coreopsis flower sounds like channeled through the musical imagination of Florence Price may hear this evocating gem here.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published Margaret Bonds  as a part of the Composers Across Cultures series by Oxford University Press (New York). It is the first book-length biography of the composer, pianist, and activist who (as many readers of these Notables know distressingly well) is Cooper’s primary musical heartthrob of late. The book draws on an unprecedented mass of archival materials, offers insights into previously neglected (but important) facets of Bonds’ career, points out and corrects a number of longstanding and widely repeated fictions, and includes as its final chapter a 100-page survey of Bonds’ more than 400 compositions, categorized by genre. It’s also Cooper’s third book completed in as many years (although its origins date back to the mid-1980s). Readers of this notice may rest assured that Cooper will now take a break from writing books (though his series of editions of previously unpublished works by Bonds and her friend and mentor Florence Price will continue…). Those interested in this book about one of the most extraordinary musicians and musical activists of the twentieth century may read snippets (or more) at OUP’s website here and through their favorite booksellers.