For more than thirty years, Daniel Pinkham (b. 1923) has been one of the most frequently performed American composers of choral music. Throughout his distinguished career, Pinkham has provided engaging, practical music for treble voices. Often the music can be performed by either children’s or women’s choirs and is adaptable to several types of ensembles. Pinkham states:
“Pragmatic concerns always have been important to me. I suppose the influence of Hindemith’s Gebrauchmusik has always been with me. I’ve always been in situations where I’ve written for performers such as church choirs or, later, in all these documentary film scores where I was the composer and the conductor. Yes, being a church choir director has made a great difference in my approach.”
For purposes of this survey, the music has been placed into three broad categories: 1) treble music with organ accompaniment, 2) unaccompanied treble music (some with optional instrumental doubling), and 3) treble music with diverse accompaniments. Works written for solo voice or in unison for any type of ensemble also are included in this review.
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