Dear ChoralNet Friends: I am developing a concert program of choral composition competition winners.

Preferred criteria: --SATB voicing with minimal divisi. --Duration of 3 to 12 minutes (multi-movement works are OK). --Settings in English or Latin are preferred, but will also welcome Hebrew, Spanish, French, or German. --Piano or small instrumental ensemble accompaniment that is integral to the work. --Difficulty level such as a NON-AUDITIONED community choir can admirably perform. Publication status is not important, nor is its age or national origin, so long as it may be legally obtained and performed. All suggestions of "forgotten treasures" as well as "new gems" are welcome so long as they were bona fide competition winners. Please identify the name of the competition and year that the composition was selected as winner. I look forward to reading your suggestions. Many thanks. What an interesting idea. Here are some possibilities: 4 e e cummings songs - SATB unaccompanied (one is SSATB) Duration ca. 9 minutes. Won the Choral Arts Ensemble Choral Commisioning Contest (2011) Won the Freudig Singers Composition Contest (2011) The Cat and the Moon* - SATB Unaccompanied (Yeats) Duration: ca. 3:30 National Collegiate Choral Organization Choral Series Award (2011) Nay, Ivy, Nay - SATB unaccompanied (anonymous text) ca. 3:30. Won the Ithaca College Choral Composition contest (2007) Won the Carol Competition, Green Bay Chamber Choir (2000) Jolly Jankin - SATB unaccompanied (frequent divisi) ca. 3:00 Won the Ithaca College Choral Composition Contest (2000) The Shepherd and the King* (Eleanor Farjeon) - SATB plus harp (or piano) ca. 3:15 Won the Welcome Christmas! Carol contest (VocalEssence and ACF) (2000) The following pieces have won the Amadeus Choir's Seasonal Song-writing Contest The Shortest Day (Susan Cooper) - SATB Unaccompanied. (2011) Oh Man, be Merry (anon) - SATB plus keyboard or brass (2005) The Brown Birds* (Eleanor Farjeon) - SATB Unaccompanied (2003) Let me Sing of a Maid (anon) - SATB (1999) Carol of the Field Mice* (Kenneth Grahame)SATB unaccompanied (1998). I Saw a Fair Maiden* (anon) - SATB (1995) Good Cheer (anon) - SSAA (also available as SATB) (1991).

*published Brian Holmes Consider these winners and finalists - all very accessible for high school and community choirs: Pie Jesu - SATB and piano (Lighthouse Music Publications) First Place 2006 Northwest Missouri College and State University Choral Composition Competition City of the Heart- SATB and Piano (text by Dr. Robert J. Smithdas) (Lighthouse Music Publications) Second Place 2005 Ithaca College Choral Composition Competition Silence Has Voices - SATB and piano (text by Dr. Robert J. Smithdas) Second Place 2004 Northwest Missouri College and State University Choral Composition Competition Finalist in 2003 Ithaca College Choral Compositions Competition Shakespeare's Kiss - SATB and piano 2007 Enigma - SATB and piano (Smithda) - 2004 Breathe on me, Day! SATB and piano (Smithdas) 2009 All finalists in the Ithaca College Choral Composition Competition My piece, "Coney Island," was the winner last year of 2 competitions: one sponsoored by the Manhattan Chorale Ensemble, one by Octarium of Kansas City. You can view the score & listen on the Composers Marketplace site here. I can also email you recordings of both choirs performing the piece. It is in English; the text is a poem by American poet Sarah Teasdale. just under 4 minutes. SATB, no divisi, a cappella. It was featured at this year's ACDA Northeast community reading sessions. & now I see that you have listed piano accompaniment as a requirement! Ooops.... Well. I still hope you'll give it a listen..... Thanks... (perhaps consider simply using the piano reduction?)

Where do you buy your choral music?

With so many music stores going out of business, I'd be interested to know where you buy your music for your choir and how you choose it. Do you look on line? Do you listen to CD's? Do you have a subscription service? and from whom do you buy your church music? I'd be interested in your feedback! Not knowing where you are, my suggestion might not be applicable. In addition to teaching, I work part time in a sheet music store in Pacific Grove, CA. I am actually sort of in charge of the choral music room. We get new issues, and packets of 25 which if purchased in total are 50% off the marked price. The store is BOOKMARK Music 1-800-648-0508 - fx 1-831-648-0518 or <info(a)bookmarkmusic.com>. I have recently catalogued new issues from Lorenz, Hope, Chorister's Guild, and Alfred. We mail and do research as well as give 10% discount to teachers, choral directors, etc. Let me know if i can be of any help. MaryClare Martin The first place I always look is on J.W. Pepper's website. It has a vast array of music for MS/HS choirs, church choirs, community choirs, etc. You can look inside most of the music online and most of the music comes with a recording that you can listen to before you buy it. Many times, if I don't know exactly what I'm looking for, I get on J.W. Pepper's website and just look through music from certain categories. I found a Christmas piece for my choir to perform by going to the Christmas Holiday section on the J.W. Pepper website and listened/researched some of the pieces they had online. Also, if you know what piece you are looking for then there are some great recordings on spotify, itunes, youtube, etc. There is only one place no matter where in the country you live. Musical Resources www.musical-resources.com They are knowledgable about so much music and so many editions. Also when I need some repertoire alternatives they can share from personal experience and their sales. Jason Thoms I get a lot of my music from cpdl.org and imslp.com for free! I order much of my music from Cliff Hill Music. Graphitepublishing.com has some wonderful new music for $1/copy. For church music, I find Choristers Guild to be wonderful. They include audio links of almost all their pieces. Morningstar's site is also good and the search options are good and many pieces have audio links. Augsburg Fortress has good music but the search options are limited.

I have found reading sessions at Choristers Guild and the Conference on Theology, Worship, and Arts at St. Olaf to be very beneficial. If I'm looking for music from the Renaissance - Classical eras, I listen to that music on pandora then see if it's on cpdl. Could someone from ACDA please please please do a reading session at a national or eastern division convention with music from the Renaissance and Baroque that is accessible for adult church choirs? Please?

Can I second that request from Austen? Sure there's a lot of good new music coming out but as a stillyoung and inexperienced conductor I need more exposure to the time-tested standards... As far as where to find new music, check out my recent (March 2012) CJ article about doing music research on line. There are many good music stores left around the country, and in addition to Musical Resources mentioned above, The Musical Source (www.musicalsource.com) is the other store in the US that specializes in dealing in choral and vocal music exclusively. Both retailers are also big supporters and members of ACDA. Musical Source gives up to 20% to schools churches and organizations year round as well, something that the large retailers like JW Pepper does not. For church music, I like the subscriptions from the main publishers (GIA, Augsburg, Morningstar, and others) depending on what type of music your church does. I also do find some things on CPDL and IMSLP, but I also have found that I spend more money copying the pieces at 10 cents a page than if I had purchased it at the store. There are many local stores in different areas that still sell sheet music and still work wtih the local customers to make their music available - and we need to keep supporting the local stores. There is one store in the entire northeast that sells just sheet music. One. Even though it is quite easy to pop online and order from the sheet music "big box" online stores, it is our local music stores that are providing our reading packets, providing our sponsorships for ACDA conferences, and supporting our organization - so let's turn around and support them back! CJ Redden-Liotta RIght here on ChoralNet. My choirs are perofrming 5 pieces I found through the Composition Showcase: http://www.choralnet.org/view/306612

As for me, my two main sources of church music are GIA Publications and Oregon Catholic Press. They have a subscription service for about $40-45/annum, and you get roughly three times that value's worth of music, spread out over three "issues" a year, along with a listening CD for all the music included. Choral Public Domain Library is another source, though not used quite as heavily as I would ideally like to, just because of the inherent limitations of my choirs. (I need to check out the imslp.com site myself - thanks for the info, Austen!) For children's choir music, I found that Choristers Guild was quite good, but GIA and OCP also do well.

I can only double Austen's request to ACDA for Renaissance and Baroque music accessible for adult choirs. This is an area which is just too little explored for the "average" church choir. A good site for ordering choral music is sheetmusicplus.com. I often find there what I don't find elsewhere. The advantages here are a small discounted price on each anthem and a small mailing price. The disadvantages are that you must order a minimum of six copies per title and, since they are a distributor, it can take a month to receive an order. If you can order way ahead of the time you need the work(s), they are very cost effective. The Independent Music Publishers Cooperative (a.k.a. "Imp") is a group of 8 award-winning, frequently commissioned composers who have combined resources to make it easier for conductors to find out about our music. We are very excited about this new model, and how it responds to exactly the situation you describe in your query. At www.imp.coop you can search the choral catalogs of: Linda Tutas Haugen J. David Moore Joan Szymko Edie Hill Tim Takach Abbie Betinis Jocelyn Hagen Elizabeth Alexander (that's me!) Our collective website will also direct you to our individual websites, for more detailed information about our music. (This is a new endeavor, so we welcome your comments and feedback on how this effort works to respond to your needs!) Elizabeth Alexander I hope you will take Jack's advice & make the Composers Marketplace here on ChoralNet your first stop. http://www.choralnet.org/view/306612

I would highly recommend Becky Guajardo's website The Choral Place http://www.thechoralplace.com; email: thechoralplace(a)juno.com. Her service is exceptional, and she offers excellent discounts on parctically any publisher. Often, she can beat the publishers' "club" prices. In any event, Becky is very personable and wonderful to work with. Give her a try. Wayne Miller