News from the Music Publishing World – Choristers Guild Sing! Monday, December 21, 2015
recommended by Rachel Steele and Jen Sper
If you’re a teacher, you probably don’t pay much attention to publishers. You sometimes look for composers and arrangers that you like, but you barely give the publisher a second glance. However, we’ve got a new publisher on the scene this year for school choral music and we promise, it’s worth your time!
Mary Lynn Lightfoot has long been a name associated with quality school choral music. Longtime editor for Heritage Music Press (the educational arm of Lorenz publishing), this year Mary Lynn moved to Choristers Guild. Choristers Guild has always been a sacred publisher, but this year Ms. Lightfoot edited their first catalog aimed at the school market, entitled Sing!
This promotion (pictured at left) should have arrived in your school mailbox sometime in August. If you didn’t receive one, you can contact Choristers Guild through their website and request one here.
If you haven’t looked at this promotion, here are some reasons we think it’s worth your time:
- First and foremost, the music is GREAT! When we do our initial listening for our choral promotions, we consider a publisher’s release “strong” if 30% or so of their titles make it through our first round. Out of this promotion, EIGHTY PERCENT of the titles make it through Round One (for more information about how we pick titles for promotion, check out our previous post on the subject).
- When it comes right down to picking the 75 or so titles that we promote for the year, the competition gets even tougher. This year, SING! had the highest percentage of their new issues promoted. We picked FORTY PERCENT of their new releases for promotion. The next best major publisher had just 25%.
- Many of the octavos come with a Learning Resource Page. Printed on the front inside cover, these offer coding from the new National Standards for Music Education (for use in lesson planning), as well as classroom activities, extension activities (for groupwork, homework, accelerated students, etc.), vocabulary and more.
- We especially loved that the activities are age-appropriate. For example, two part octavo activities are clearly aimed at upper elementary/early middle school students, while SATB octavos have more sophisticated material for late middle school or early high school kids.
For more information about titles we especially liked, check out our middle school and high school promotions on our website, or give us a call at 1-800-42-MUSIC ext. 1.
About the Authors:
Rachel Steele has been working in the choral department at Stanton’s since 2013. She previously taught middle school and high school band and choir for 13 years, and holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in music education from The Ohio State University. Currently a member of the Heisey Wind Ensemble and a musician at Epiphany Lutheran Church (Pickerington, OH) Rachel also enjoys reading, sewing, baking and the Pittsburgh Steelers!
A former middle school and high school choral director, Jen Sper holds a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Baldwin Wallace College Conservatory of Music. An active choral singer and accompanist throughout the Central Ohio area, she also enjoys good food, running (to counteract the good food…) and the Muppets.
