Jerusalem by Michael McGlynn (www.anuna.ie)

Jason,

 

Check the archives of the "Favorite piece of the month" feature of Musica (http://www.musicanet.org) .

There are many of them fitting exactly your definition. You'll find there multimedia features allowing you to have a very good idea of each of them (image of a page of the score, a good recording or video, even a sound-file of the correct pronunciation,...)

 

Jean

Jason, the pieces that we are editing in my Galant Masters Project are wonderful pieces that nobody has heard in 250 years. Our focus with this project is on the eighteenth century Neapolitan school, an era when music was focused primarily on opera but also had a huge output of great church music.

 

I'd love to have you take a look at some of the titles in our series.

 

Tom

Jason,

 

Please consider the title RAIN; see the listing on my Published Works Page.

http://www.stanleymhoffman.com/pwp.htm

It iis published by ECS Publishing http://www.ecspublishing.com 

and distributed by Canticle Distributing http://www.morningstarmusic.com.

Published in 1999, this tender love song remains, to my knowledge, unperformed.

 

Thank you for your consideration.

 

Stanley M. Hoffman, Ph.D.

 

Hello Jason,

 

This past season, Ensemble Companio premiered "The Maid of Culmore," an Irish folk song beautifully arranged by our director, composer Joseph Gregorio.  You can hear a live recording here:

 

http://soundcloud.com/ensemblecompanio/gregorio-arr-themaidofculmorelive

 

If you're interested in seeing the music, you can write to Joseph Gregorio at joseph(a)josephgregoriomusic.com and he could help you.  It's also available for purchase from him.

 

Thank you for reading and listening; I think you'll greatly enjoy Joseph's arrangement!

 

Ensemble Companio

http://www.ensemblecompanio.com

Hello Jason,

 

I wrote a piece in the Spring of 2010 of Indiana Adventist Academy (a private high school in Cicero, Indiana) that has been performed only a few times since then, but has been very well received by audiences and singers alike (it has often been commented to me by many singers that it was their favorite piece). The piece is called "Soon One Day" and would work great in a festival setting. Here is a youtube recording of "Soon One Day": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBFKEd1gIDg.

 

The piece is SATB, no divisi, and sounds best when sung with a free, open, and somewhat hollow tone.

 

If you are interested in the piece, please e-mail me at michael.lee.sandvik(a)gmail.com, let me know how many copies you would like, and I will send you a pdf version of the piece with an invoice giving permission to make the number of copies you've indicated. The piece is sold at $1.50 per copy.

 

God Bless,

Michael Sandvik

 

"Home On That Rock," by good old Kirby Shaw.  Several times in the Lectionary there are prominent rocks, and this piece works in many of them.  A capella SAB in a great gospel style. 

 

Tom Seniow

Hi, Jason!

 

I have a couple of pieces I'd certainly like to get on your radar screen! One is House Song to the East, published by Alliance, for SATB a cappella, and the other is A Song of the Road, for SATB, trumpet, and piano four hands, available from me at my web site.

 

All best!

Jonathan Santore

info(a)jonathansantore.com

www.jonathansantore.com

Psalm settings in Hebrew:

 

Psalm 23-Simon Sargon

Psalm 146-Salamone Rossi

Psalm 150-Louis Lewandowski

No idea if this has been heard by a lot of people or not, but Gwyneth Walker's Tambourines is great for a HS festival and Iv'e never heard it outside of doing it myself.

 

David

 

"Let Every Child" by Harold Bielawa. A lively, engaging piece written for children, but certainly suitable and challenging enough for any treble choir.

I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes by Sveinbjorn Sveinbjornsson, available at www.cpdl.org. My community chorus loved this piece and I never tired of working on it. Voice leadings are natural but not cliched, each section is featured alone or paired with one other; something about the piece sounded to me as though it belonged in an oratorio. We did it in English rather than Icelandic :)

My choice is:  CANTICUM SIMEONIS - by Helmut Barbe - SATB & chamber orch.  Last I heard it was published by C.F. Peters. Loved performing it years ago.  Little known in the U.S.  

Striking!

      t

Psalm 23 by Carl Nygard is amazing. The piano part is quite difficult, so it was never published by a major house, but it is available directly from him. It was written for PMEA District 10 High School festival in the 90s. My church choir did it quite successfully. 

 

This is probably one of my all time favorite pieces, and is very much off the radar for people that do not know the piece already.

 

CJ Redden-Liotta

 

I don't know if you're looking for recent works or not.  However, if you all are unfmaliar with the choral works of Anthony Maglione, you should get to know them.   I heard his work "O Thou Great Power In Whom I Move" on the "Eternal Light" CD on Gothic.   I did a quick google search and found this: www.anthonymaglione.com 

 

These works are unique and very beautiful.  I doubt many people are performing them yet as he seems to be young.

I hope this helps.

 

David

Warm by Stephen Taberner, MD of The Spooky Men's Chorale

Good morning, Jason

Yours is the sort of post that every choral conductor needs to read: some great ideas here!  I'll be trying some of them myself.

 

I discovered purely by chance a piece on CPDL, written by a living composer in England.  I programmed the piece in a December concert, and the choir loved it so much that I contacted the composer to tell him. The piece is scored for SAB with some soprano divisi.  I did it with my full choir, since the men sing much more than an harmonic underpinning.  They sing an independant, compelling line which is often the melody.  Look it up: this piece needs to be performed.  "I Saw A Light" by Rawson, cpdl.org.

 

 

Wishart

 

Wishart Bell, D.M.A.

Artistic Director, Musical Arts Indiana: Vesper Chorale, Children's Choir of Michiana

Director of Music, First United Methodist Church

Conductor, Cantus Cathedralis, St. Matthew Cathedral

ACDA R & S Chair for Community Choirs, Central Division

 

Jason,

     My community choir performed a newer work that we really enjoyed singing and the audience seemed to love. It is by a young composer Aaron Pike called "peace". I'm not sure if he has other works out there but this one was pretty good. Kind of Eric Whitacre-esque but very beautiful and moving. I think it is published by Santa Barbara. Hope this helps

 

Cheers,

 

Glen

If you're interested in something a little longer than the usual 3-6 minute piece, Jason, Mark Hayes wrote a beautiful Te Deum, demonstrating his skill at composing in a "high church" style.  It has a lot of divisi, and can be accompanied by either organ alone, or by organ and orchestra.  Really worth the look if you want to do something a little longer.  

A piece that I just came across not to long ago is I Believe.The arrangment of it is done by the great Mark Miller. It's haunting, chilling, and adds the right touch to pretty much anything.

 

Here is a link of a performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdSTIjpV9js

 

And here is a link if you are interested in ordering the piece: http://www.lorenz.com/product.aspx?id=CGA1310

 

Glad I got to stumble upon it while performing it.

 

Musically yours, 

 

Thomas Lyons

Famine Song arr. Matthew Culloton

Santa Barbara publishing. A cappella and very haunting, but absolutely lovely

 

 

 

This is a good "off the radar" piece for high school choral festival

 

http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/Sing-We-And-Chant-It-SATB/19251080