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Albany Records Releases Sweet Chariot, Solo and Chamber Music by Alvin Singleton

Jul. 03, 2014

Albany Records Releases <em>Sweet Chariot</em>, Solo and Chamber Music by Alvin Singleton

On July 1, 2014, Albany Records released Sweet Chariot, a portrait album featuring seven works by Alvin Singleton composed between 1970 and 2012. The album highlights several of Singleton’s most striking works for solo instruments and chamber ensemble, with performances by many of the composer’s long-time champions and collaborators. Of Singleton's music, critic Kyle Gann writes:

Singleton's music is soulful, with an understated simplicity that I particularly prize... It glows with warmth, it hovers in the air, it paces itself with a glacial but palpably intuitive momentum. It refuses to pander to either academicism or populism, but is so honest and self-assured that listeners flock to it anyway. 

The Argoru titles (Argoru I for solo piano, Argoru II for solo cello, Argoru V/a for solo bass clarinet and Argoru VIII for snare drum) are taken from the Ghanaian Twi word meaning “to play.” The works, composed between 1970 and 2002, are musical platforms for sheer virtuosic display of each solo instrument.

Jasper Drag, commissioned by Michigan State University and the Phillips Collection for the Verdehr Trio, is a reflection on the 1998 racially motivated death of James Byrd, Jr. in Jasper, TX. Singleton notes that the piece “is not intended to tell a story, or even to evoke images. Jasper Drag is meant to be a marker on the collective memory of a nation still growing….”

The most recent works on the album, In My Own Skin and Sweet Chariot, were composed between 2011 and 2012. In My Own Skin is a highly-pianistic, one-movement work in which two competing sonic worlds emerge; one deliberate, strong and measured, the other sprightly and impetuous. Singleton’s Sweet Chariot, inspired by the well-known American spiritual, provides glimpses of the original tune, but isn’t a set of typically expected variations. The piece was premiered in 2013 by the Philadelphia-based Astral Artists.

To learn more about Alvin Singleton, please visit www.schott-music.com

Details about Sweet Chariot can be found at www.albanyrecords.com.



Argoru I (1970)
for solo piano
6’

Argoru II (1970)
for solo cello
13’

Argoru V/a (1987)
for solo bass clarinet
12’

Argoru VIII (2002)
for solo snare drum
6’

Jasper Drag (2000)
for violin, clarinet and piano
10’

Sweet Chariot (2012)
for chamber ensemble
two flutes (doubling piccolo and alto flute), bassoon, soprano saxophone (doubling tenor saxophone), cello
16’

In My Own Skin (2011)
for solo piano
10’

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