Alvin Singleton ​

Project 80

January 4, 2021
Happy 2021! Start the New Year with our special concert: Momenta Quartet performing Alvin Singleton.

​Alvin Singleton is the name of one of the most brilliant American composers you need to know. His music and his energy make the world a better place. On December 28, 2020, we celebrated Alvin Singleton’s 80th birthday in a very special way. Yes, there was a Zoom party but it was like none other you’ve attended all year long. Every participant was in a celebratory mood contributing to the overall atmosphere that was just perfect. The guest of honor, Alvin Singleton, was truly and happily surprised to see so many of his friends smiling and cheering for him. 
Enjoy the concert here and the film here
Lisa Cooper, Alvin Singleton’s wife and masterful planner of beautiful surprises, was elated and proud. We also streamed a film with highlights of Alvin’s life through his music, words, and birthday wishes. It was a night to remember honoring the one and only: Alvin Singleton. 
HocTok is honored for the opportunity to speak with Alvin Singleton, the American composer whose music is expressive, honest, and always self assured. ​

​Alvin Singleton is an American composer whose music is performed in the best venues across the US and Europe. His academic background includes degrees from New York University and Yale. As a Fulbright Scholar, he studied with Goffredo Petrassi at Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Italy. Alvin Singleton’s career achievements include Fulbright, Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts recognition. His rich body of works is comprised of compositions for orchestra, chamber ensembles, solo pieces, chorus, voices and instruments and more. Growing up surrounded by Jazz in Brooklyn, NY, and later experiencing the best Europe has to offer in his 14 years of living there, Alvin Singleton has an authentic voice. He makes music that speaks to the soul.  

Atlanta Symphony, Houston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Detroit Symphony and many other distinguished orchestras have commissioned and performed works by Alvin Singleton. In 2014, Alvin Singleton was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Letters, an honor bestowed on only 250 artists across all disciplines at any time. 
Alvin Singleton's music is soulful, with an understated simplicity that I particularly prize. Despite the studied economy of his means and the set character of his images, the music is never cold ... nor abstract. 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. 
- Kyle Gann, Chamber Music Magazine