I couldn’t be there, but my music could, thanks to The Crossing and MusicSpoke. The American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) National Conference just concluded in Salt Lake City, and was a huge success by all the reports I’m getting. And these reports are not just from people familiar with my music, no, no, but are also from, you know, normal people.
MusicSpoke is “a marketplace committed to musicians. We don’t publish pieces of music. We find gifted composers that we believe in and give them the tools and freedom to promote themselves.” They are a brand-new and exciting venture for composers and I’m honored to be included in their first wave. They’re growing quickly and are part of the new world of music distribution. They go on:
We provide an easy way to find high quality sheet music. Our platform makes it easy to search by composer, ensemble, theme, and other tags. Each score has its own page allowing users to hear and see the entire piece. Scores are available for immediate digital download and printing, based on the number of licenses purchased.
And it’s true; it’s quick, easy, and there’s lots of wonderful pieces there from very gifted composers I’m happy to be getting to know. My anthem Holy Mountain was included in a MusicSpoke reading session at ACDA. So far, I have five choral pieces with them: in addition to Holy Mountain is the anthem God So Loved the World and concert works And Good in Every Thing (Shakespeare), The Chambered Nautilus (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.), and How Do I Love Thee? (Elizabeth Barrett Browning, for girls choir).
You can look at entire scores and hear the works by going to this page.
The Crossing also had a presence at ACDA, and had me along with a few other composers represented. Here is the page they created for the works of mine they’ve performed; I should get them to take over my website as this is so cool.
The Consolation of Apollo (with percussion), The Waking Sun (with Baroque ensemble), Where Flames a Word (a cappella), and Vespers (with Renaissance instruments) are all described, and for parts of Apollo and Where Flames they’ve created video with music, where the score turns pages by itself as they sing. I don’t know how that’s done or if it’s easy to do, but it is definitely the coolest thing.
Thanks, MusicSpoke and The Crossing!