The Singing Rooms


The Singing Rooms is a concerto for solo violin, choir, and orchestra by the American composer Jennifer Higdon. The work was jointly commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and the Minnesota Orchestra. It was first performed on January 17, 2008 in Philadelphia by the violinist Jennifer Koh, The Philadelphia Singers, and the Philadelphia Orchestra under the conductor Christoph Eschenbach. The text of the piece is set to poems by Jeanne Minahan. The piece was performed in March 2019 at the Kimmel Center for Performing Arts in Philadelphia by the Temple University Choirs and Orchestra, with a featured violin soloist. The piece's most recent notable performance was in August 2025 at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago's Millennium Park with The Grant Park Music Festival Orchestra and Chorus, with Jennifer Koh returning as violin soloist.

Composition

Text

When first commissioned to write a violin concerto with a choral element, Higdon began searching for poetry on which to set the composition. She wrote in the score program notes:

Structure

The Singing Rooms has a duration of roughly 37 minutes and is composed in seven movements set to the text of poems by Jeanne Minahan:
  1. Three Windows: Two Versions of the Day
  2. Things Aren't Always
  3. The Interpretation of Dreams
  4. Confession
  5. History Lesson
  6. A Word with God
  7. Three Windows: Two Versions of the Day

Instrumentation

The work is scored for solo violin, SATB chorus, and an orchestra comprising two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, harp, timpani, two percussionists, and strings.

Reception

Howard Goldstein of BBC Music Magazine praised The Singing Rooms, writing, "Higdon often lets the poems take a backseat to the concerto-like solo violin part, resulting in a lavishness of musical gesture occasionally at odds with the intimate subject matter." Bradley Bambarger of The Star-Ledger compared the work favorably to Higdon's Violin Concerto, despite noting that "it still tends to be melodically anodyne."