MTD Events
Guest Lecture/Recital: Mira Walker, "Women of the Chicago Black Renaissance"
Date and Time
Thursday, January 22, 2026 4:30 PM
Location
Sherman van Solkema Recital Hall
Description
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.
This event also appears on the main events calendar tagged as arts, clas, concert, music, and performance.
Contact
Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance
(616) 331-3484