Voices from the Heartland: a Cycle of Hymns, Spirituals, Folk Songs and American Indian Chants - Crumb, George 1929-2022 (Frankfurt am Main Leipzig London New York Peters, 2010)
Beginning in 2000, Crumb wrote a number of works subtitled American Songbook. Each of these works is a set of arrangements of American hymns, spirituals, and popular tunes: Crumb originally planned to produce four such volumes, but in fact he continued to produce additional sets after the fourth (The Winds of Destiny) was written, with the seventh volume of the series (Voices from the Heartland) completed in 2010. Typically these settings preserve the familiar tunes more-or-less intact, but the accompaniments for amplified piano and percussionists use a very wide range of musical techniques and exotic sounds. As of 2017, American Songbook totalled 65 movements, 62 texts, 150 percussion instruments, more than five hours of music.
for Two Amplified Solo voices (Male and Female), Amplified Piano, and Percussion Quartet
Keywords: Vocal music; Piano; Percussion