Solange shares four-act performance: ‘In Service To Whom’

Solange has shared preview footage and images from her new four-act performance, In Service To Whom.

• READ MORE: Solange – ‘When I Get Home’ review

The R&B artist shared clips of the headline performance from the inaugural Volume festival, hosted at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia in October 2023.

The multimedia presentation was described as combination of “sonic meditations with performance-specific scenography and digital-visual archive projections” that integrates the artist’s “spirit in music, design, visual art, and cultural archive and preservation into one four-act performance”.

The piece included a 10-piece ensemble and orchestral works composed by Solange between 2018 and 2023 (‘Villanelle For Times’, ‘God Rest Your’, ‘Bridge-s’, and ‘In Past Pupils and Smiles’), alongside her contemporary music.

According the exhibition notes, In Service To Whom was inspired by the idea of rest, and “speaks to the artist’s reemergence into the world of everyday life following periods of personal incubation and self-revitalization at home”.

Solange shared on her Saint Heron creative hub that the compositions were “inspired by repetition, gospel vocal arrangements, minimalism, and the Black southern marching band music of football games frequented by the artist in her hometown of Houston, Texas”.

The performance also debuted two original works – a duo tuba piece called ‘Not Necessarily In Arms Reach, Music for Two Tubas’ and a solo cello and double bass number titled ‘If the Promise is Large’.

The full gallery of pictures can be viewed here. Asked by a fan via her Instagram stories where In Service To Whom will be available to watch, Solange replied:” I’m still trying to answer the question “in service to whom”? I think the answer is is revealing itself more and more each day.

“The gratitude I feel in response to the work feels both in service to me and in service to this phenomenal community who lifts up the work. I’m excited to figure out its next chapter.”

Solange was part of the immersive art exhibition in October, flanked by an ensemble of singers, instruments and video screens, which was integrated with “performance art”, according to The Guardian.

In 2022 the artist debuted her first ballet score, which accompanied a production by the New York City Ballet.

Solange’s last album was 2019’s ‘When I Get Home’, which NME said in a five-star review was a “celebration of women, black culture and – above all – music”.