Hamilton Cleverdon

Hamilton Cleverdon (born 1980) is a violist and composer.

The son of guitarist Edwin Cleverdon, who played with Tuscaloosa's Club Wig, Cleverdon grew up with music in his Washington D. C. home. When the family moved to Birmingham he applied to the Alabama School of Fine Arts and was accepted into the music program. He began expanding the compositional skills he had first picked up producing hip-hop influenced tracks for video games. Under Robert Janssen's tutelage he analyzed the structure of several classical forms and incorporated those lessons into music he posted at the web site garageband.com.

It was there that his piece, "The Fall", was discovered by Genoa, Italy-based playwright Flavio Parenti, who secured permission to use the piece in a comedy he was writing about pirates. The play, entitled Rum, later evolved into a more serious work as Cleverdon continued to add dramatic music to the score. He attended the premiere at Genoa's Teatro Stabile, his expenses paid as an honorarium for the gift of his music.

Beginning in the fall of 2007, Cleverdon will be studying composition at Birmingham-Southern College under Charles Mason on a full scholarship.

References

• Huebner, Michael (June 26, 2007) "The music in his heart." Birmingham News.