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Alvin Singleton in Concert from Coast to Coast

Feb. 01, 2017

Alvin Singleton in Concert from Coast to Coast

There are numerous opportunities to hear the music of Alvin Singleton in February, with a range of performances of the composer's chamber and orchestral music taking place in Chicago, Washington DC and Seattle.

The Fulcrum Point New Music Project offers two opportunities to experience Singleton's music, with a performance of In Our Own House on February 9 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Greed Machine on February 10 at The Promontory in Chicago. Scored for the unique instrumentation of soprano saxophone, trumpet, snare drum, and piano, In Our Own House establishes melodic ideas for each instrument at the outset before asking each performer to “improvise freely, quoting previously performed material.” Greed Machine from 2003 is a mysterious, Zen-like work for vibraphone and piano, featuring the Singleton signatures of extreme contrasts, quiet drama, repetition, and an economy of means.

The North Corner Chamber Orchestra, a Seattle-based conductorless ensemble, performs Singleton’s Eine Idee ist ein Stück Stoff for string orchestra on as part of their “Resonance: Celebrating Black American Composers” program on February 18 and 19. The work was composed in memory of both the writer James Baldwin and the composer Gustav Mahler, and represents a common ground between the blues and the waltz. 

Rounding out the month is the U.S. Army Band “Pershing’s Own” with two performances of Singleton’s recent chamber work Sweet Chariot; the first on February 21 at Brucker Hall in Arlington, VA, followed by a performance at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture on February 26. Singleton’s Sweet Chariot is based on the universally recognizable spiritual of the same name, which is, as the composer describes, “sketchily quoted a few times here and there” throughout the 16-minute work. Listen to a recording of Sweet Chariot from the premiere performance presented by Philadelphia's Astral Artists:



More information on Alvin Singleton can be found at schott-music.com.

Alvin Singleton
In Our Own House (1998)
for soprano saxophone, trumpet, snare drum, and piano
8’ 

Greed Machine (2003)
for vibraphone and piano
7’ 

Eine Idee ist ein Stück Stoff (1988)
for string orchestra
10’ 

Sweet Chariot (2012)
for 2 flutes (doubling piccolo and alto flute), bassoon, soprano saxophone (doubling tenor saxophone), and cello
16’

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