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The Boy with the Axles in His Hands

from Goes Free by Domino Ensemble

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The Boy with the Axles in His Hands (1866)
Thomas Greene “Blind Tom’ Wiggins (1849-1908)

Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins was born blind and enslaved near Columbus, Georgia, but he became one of the most famous American entertainers of the 1800s. The Bethunes, who enslaved Wiggins and his family, had seven children who played piano and sang, and young Wiggins loved to listen to their music. When he was still only four years old, he began to play back the music he heard on the piano. James Bethune could see that Wiggins was very talented, and so he paid for teachers for the boy. By the time he was eight years old, Wiggins was performing public concerts around Georgia, and eventually throughout the country, for the profit of Bethune. By the time he was 11 years old, he was already so famous that he became the first African American to be invited to perform for the president at the White House! He had incredible abilities to remember and reproduce sounds. He could play back music on the piano that he had only heard once, play difficult classical pieces with his back turned to the piano, and could even perform three songs at once (one with his right hand, another with his left hand, and a third sung, each in a different key!). He also wrote his own music, often used music effects that mimicked sounds that he heard in his everyday life, like the sound of rain the wind, and even a sewing machine.
Even though the end of the Civil War in 1865 should have freed all enslaved African Americans, the Bethunes found ways to keep legal and financial control of Wiggins. They kept all of the money he earned playing thousands of concerts. Even so, Wiggins was able to create music that was striking and unique. Listening to his music today, we can hear that Wiggin’s creativity went farther than other composers would go until the middle of the 1900s.

References:

Howard-Tilton Memorial Library. Tulane University Digital Library. Louisiana Sheet Music collection. digitallibrary.tulane.edu/islandora/object/tulane:p15140coll47

Music by Black Composers. Violin Volume 1. Ludwig Masters Publications (2018). ISBN 978-1-
68296-781-2. Rachel Barton Pine Foundation. www.musicbyblackcomposers.org

credits

from Goes Free, released January 18, 2021
Cullen Burke (synth and live electronics)
Hunter Deacon (drumset)
Matt Nelson (double bass)
Jorge Variego (soprano and tenor saxophone)

Recorded @ Arch Audio in Chattanooga on December 4th.
Recording engineer: Tyler Reddick
Produced by the Domino Ensemble. Jorge Variego - Founding Director.

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Domino Ensemble Knoxville, Tennessee

The mission of the Domino Ensemble is the promotion, commission and performance of new music with improvisation. Through educational workshops and performances of new and commissioned compositions by young student composers, the Domino Ensemble serves as a unique bridge between young creative artists, their communities and future audiences. ... more

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