Guest Lecture/Recital: Mira Walker, "Women of the Chicago Black Renaissance"

Thursday, January 22, 2026
4:30 p.m.
Allendale Campus
Alumni, Community, Faculty, Staff, Students

Title: Women of the Chicago Black Renaissance

Description: The Chicago Black Renaissance was a period of intense artistic creativity and community-building beginning in the 1930s. This lecture recital will examine the impact of this cultural movement on piano music through the interconnected biographies and compositional traits of Florence Price, Margaret Bonds, Betty Jackson King, and Irene Britton Smith. Attendees will gain a deeper historical and aural understanding of this transformative era in American piano music.

Presenter Bio: American pianist Mira Walker is known for her sensitive interpretations of repertoire ranging from J.S. Bach to Florence Price, her research on historically underrepresented composers, and her dedication to community outreach through music. Mira completed her B.A. in Music at the University of Alabama at Birmingham with Yakov Kasman, and her M.M. in Piano Performance at Indiana University with Norman Krieger. She is currently a D.M.A. candidate in Piano Pedagogy and Performance at the University of Michigan under the instruction of Logan Skelton and John Ellis, where she also serves as a Graduate Student Instructor.

Mira's honors include top prizes in dozens of competitions, including First Prize in both the NANM National Piano Competition and the NFMC Collegiate Piano Competition. Other recognitions include Finalist in the 2025 Rosalyn Tureck International Bach Competition ,Farwell Award Winner in the 2024 MCW Instrumental Music Competition, and winner of the 2020 Alabama Symphony Orchestra Competition. In recognition of Mira's excellence in teaching, she was awarded the Joanne Smith Award for Piano Pedagogy in 2023. Mira has been a featured soloist with orchestras such as the Alabama Symphony Orchestra and the National Ukrainian Symphony, and appears at international music festivals such as the Gilmore Festival, Gijón International Piano Festival, Vivace International Music Festival, and Brevard Music Institute.

She has presented and performed at national and international conferences such as MTNA, NCKP, and CMS/IAWM, and performs nation-wide as a soloist and chamber musician. During the summer of 2025, Mira worked with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra to provide community music programming in neighborhoods around the city of Detroit where she is currently based. Committed to programming and researching works by underrepresented composers, Mira made recordings of works by Florence Price, Margaret Bonds, Irene Britton Smith, and Nathaniel Dett for the Michigan Recording Project, and was awarded a Rackham Doctoral Fellowship to work with A Seat at the Piano, an organization dedicated to promoting inclusion in piano repertoire.

Upcoming projects and performances include a professional recording project of works by Women of the Chicago Black Renaissance, and a performance as concerto soloist with the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra.

Location Information

Sherman van Solkema Recital Hall

Download parking map for the Allendale Campus

Contact Information

Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance
(616) 331-3484

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This event was added to the calendar by Bridgett Vanderhoof (vandebri@gvsu.edu) on Monday, August 4, 2025 at 10:40 a.m.