News & Views Thursday, May 17, 2012

The National Endowment for the Arts’ American Masterpieces: Choral Music initiative is designed to celebrate our national musical heritage by highlighting significant American choral composers and their works of the past 250 years.  Stanton’s Sheet Music is proud to present this series highlighting the composers and their works featured in this groundbreaking project.

(from NEA.gov)
William Schuman (1910-1992) ranks among the most honored and distinguished American composers, although most of his works are less well-known among the general public than those of his contemporaries Copland, Bernstein, and Barber. An exception to this is his New England Triptych, an orchestral work often paired on programs with the similarly conceived (but very different sounding) Three Places in New England by Charles Ives.

In 1943 he won the first Pulitzer Prize for music ever given. He was the first composer ever commissioned to write a work by the U.S. government. He was president of The Juilliard School for 18 years, and president of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts for its first eight years. He was granted more than 20 honorary degrees in a lifetime as an educator, administrator, and composer, and had an enormous impact through his teaching and his tireless efforts to incorporate classical music into the lives of the American public.

Schuman’s catalogue is particularly rich in choral works. He was an acknowledged master of accompanied and a cappella choral music both complex and simple in scope (some pieces are written specifically for amateur singers). He made a point of emphasizing American poetry for his texts. His Carols of Death are settings of three powerful verses by Walt Whitman. On a lighter note, the choruses from Casey at the Bat (a 1976 “baseball cantata” adapted in turn from his 1953 opera The Mighty Casey) revel in the rollicking humorous verse of Ernest Lawrence Thayer, reflecting Schuman’s lifelong passion for baseball.

Selected Works:
A Free Song
Casey at the Bat
The Lord Has a Child
Te Deum
This Is Our Time

For more distinguished choral repertoire suggestions, please contact us.

The 2012 OMEA Professional Conference is just around the corner.  In addition to being a great way to recharge during this long period of the school year and the camaraderie of being around friends and colleagues, it is also a great place to discover new music, learn new teaching techniques, and discover new tools to enhance teaching and learning in your classroom.  The instrumental staff at Stanton’s is pleased to highlight some of the items being featured at this year’s conference. 

Composer and co-author of the Sound Innovations band method, Robert Sheldon will be presenting sessions including Fix It Now: Techniques for Creating Immediate and Significant Improvement in Your Rehearsal, Writing Music for Winds and Percussion, and Preparing Your Ensemble for Expressive Performance.

Composer and co-author of the Tradition of Excellence band method, Ryan Nowlin will highlight approaches for starting beginners, lesson planning, and using the technology and enrichment features of the T.O.E. book during his session, Teaching Band with Excellence: Achieving the Most in Every Lesson.

Conducting takes center stage in Practical Score Preparation Strategies for the Harried Instrumental Conductor by Gary Stith (author of Score Rehearsal Preparation), and Be the Music: Non-Verbal Gestures, Pedagogical and Musical Thoughts and Ideas for the Conductor by Stephen Gage combining the pedagogical approaches of Laban, Green, and Lisk (Conductor, Teacher, Leader; The Musical Mind of the Creative Director).

There are many technology-related sessions featuring Finale notation software including Finale Top Ten; Using Finale and SmartMusic Together to Easily Maximize Your Results; Finale and SmartMusic in Action with HS Band Students; and Using Finale in Music Education, and the sessions/discussions with Sousa historian/Fillmore biographer and Columbus resident Paul Bierley (Hallelujah Trombone), Sam Pilafian (Breathing Gym Live for Band, Orchestra, and Chorus), and Tom Batiuk, cartoonist/creator of Funky Winkerbean, are sure to be both entertaining and informative.

For more information about the sessions, visit the searchable schedule on the OMEA website, and visit Stantons.com, Stanton’s OMEA booth, or stop by the store while you’re in Columbus to purchase any of the titles listed above.  We look forward to seeing you February 16-18!

The National Endowment for the Arts’ American Masterpieces: Choral Music initiative is designed to celebrate our national musical heritage by highlighting significant American choral composers and their works of the past 250 years.  Stanton’s Sheet Music is proud to present this series highlighting the composers and their works featured in this groundbreaking project.

(from NEA.gov)
In America, especially after World War I, the popularity of opera was challenged by both the cinema and the Broadway musical show. All the more striking, then, has been the success of Gian Carlo Menotti (1911-2007), an Italian-American who has dared to center his career on writing operas, two of which (The Saint of Bleecker Street and The Consul) won the Pulitzer Prize for music among other awards.

Unashamedly conservative in technique, Menotti has always written in a traditional tonal language. His television Christmas opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, won him a mass audience and remains today one of the most frequently performed stage works in America.

Despite his concentration on opera, he has also composed a significant body of choral music. The largest has been the cantata The Death of the Bishop of Brindisi. The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore, designated a “madrigal-ballet,” is sung as well as danced. Missa O Pulchritudo is scored for soloists, chorus, and orchestra and was premiered at the Spoleto Festival in Italy, which Menotti founded in 1958.

Menotti showed extraordinary vigor at an age when most people have been long retired. He continued to compose, and to direct opera, well into his 90s. In his later years he became if anything even more prolific in the choral field. For the Death of Orpheus was first performed under the direction of Robert Shaw in 1990, a Gloria was written in 1995 as part of a composite Mass by various composers, and “Jacob’s Prayer” (1997) was commissioned by the American Choral Directors Association.

Selected Works:
Amahl and the Night Visitors
The Death of the Bishop of Brindisi
For the Death of Orpheus
Llama de amor viva
Missa O Pulchritudo
Muero porque no muero (Cantata for St. Teresa of Avila)
The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore

For more distinguished choral repertoire suggestions, please contact us.

The concert band world lost an icon over this past weekend. William Francis McBeth (March 9, 1933 – January 6, 2012) was a prolific American composer, whose wind band works are highly respected. Among the most popular of his nearly 60 band works were Chant and Jubilo, Of Sailors and Whales, Through Countless Halls of Air, Masque, Kaddish, Canto and Caccia.  The popularity of his works in the United States during the last half of the twentieth century led to many invitations and appearances as a guest conductor, where he often conducted the premiere performances of some of his compositions, the majority of which were commissioned. His conducting activities have taken him to forty-eight states, three Canadian provinces, Japan, and Australia.

From 1957 until his retirement in 1996, McBeth taught at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.  He had an early start to his musical training, studying piano with his mother and taking up the trumpet in the second grade. He attended Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas. While an undergraduate at H-SU, McBeth played in the university band. From December 1952 to January 1953, the band traveled with U.S. Camp Shows to Europe. He also played string bass in a jazz combo, which was unusual for the time period due to widespread segregation throughout the South.   He was initiated into the University of Texas Alpha Iota Chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia in 1957.  In 1962, McBeth conducted the Arkansas All-State Band, with future president Bill Clinton playing in the tenor saxophone section. He served as the third conductor of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra from 1970 until 1973. He died aged 78 in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

McBeth’s most outstanding awards have been the Presley Award at Hardin-Simmons University, the Howard Hanson Prize at the Eastman School of Music for his Third Symphony in 1963, recipient of an ASCAP Special Award each consecutive year from 1965 to present, the American School Band Directors Association’s Edwin Franko Goldman Award in 1983, elected Fellow of the American Wind and Percussion Artists by the National Band Association in 1984, National Citation from Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity in 1985, in 1988 Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia’s Charles E. Lutton Man of Music Award for his achievement and continued contribution to American music, Kappa Kappa Psi’s National Service to Music Award in 1989, Mid-West International Band and Orchestra Clinic’s Medal of Honor in 1993 and Past President of the American Bandmasters Association. In 1975 McBeth was appointed Composer Laureate of the State of Arkansas by the Governor, the first Composer Laureate named in the United States.

The National Endowment for the Arts’ American Masterpieces: Choral Music initiative is designed to celebrate our national musical heritage by highlighting significant American choral composers and their works of the past 250 years.  Stanton’s Sheet Music is proud to present this series highlighting the composers and their works featured in this groundbreaking project.

(from NEA.gov)
Although he wrote a few solo piano pieces in his short life, Stephen Foster (1826-1864) produced songs almost exclusively – over 200 of them. His simple, moving melodies have the distinct flavor of a bygone day and yet seem to stay fresh forever. They have such a timeless quality that many have assumed they were folk songs. Years after his tragic story became known – how he wrote most of his best songs in a period of ten years and died at age 38 with 37 cents in his pocket – he became a figure of American myth.

He was not, as legend has it, an untutored genius who dashed off miracles of melody in flashes of divine inspiration. He came from a solid middle-class family in Pennsylvania where he was schooled in private academies, had some formal music study, and labored long hours over his scores, often agonizing over the minutest details. This is not to say he was not precocious: his first song, “Open Thy Lattice Love,” was published when he was 18. He was 20 when he had his first hit, “Oh! Susanna,” although he realized only $100 for it. The absence of enforceable copyright for his songs meant royalties were rare.

“Old Folks at Home” (also known as “Swanee River”) was the biggest success of his lifetime. It was felt that this was the definitive lyrical expression of longing for the Old South, and yet, Foster had been there only briefly, once, on his honeymoon. Scores of other heartfelt songs, including “Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming,” “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,” “Hard Times Come Again No More,” “Camptown Races,” and “Beautiful Dreamer” continue to touch listeners in their original versions and in countless fine choral arrangements.

Selected Works:
A Stephen Foster Medley
Beautiful Dreamer
Camptown Races
Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming
Hard Times Come Again No More
Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair
Three Portraits by Stephen Foster

For more distinguished choral repertoire suggestions, please contact us.

The National Endowment for the Arts’ American Masterpieces: Choral Music initiative is designed to celebrate our national musical heritage by highlighting significant American choral composers and their works of the past 250 years.  Stanton’s Sheet Music is proud to present this series highlighting the composers and their works featured in this groundbreaking project.

(from NEA.gov)
The days are gone when association with Hollywood and popular culture was a mark against the “serious” musician: the great Wagnerian soprano Helen Traubel’s career at the Met in the 1950s, for example, was doomed after she dared to sing at a night club on an off night.

Perhaps something of the same was suffered by Norman Luboff (1917-1987), one of America’s great choral directors and arrangers, who dared to make much of his living working in the popular culture media of his era. And maybe that is why today he is being reassessed and newly appreciated for the sterling musician he was, and for his enormous contributions to American choral music.

Luboff was born in Chicago and studied at the University of Chicago and Central College, doing graduate work with Leo Sowerby. He put himself through school by singing and composing for local radio stations. He moved to New York City hoping to make a career in radio music, then was lured to Hollywood to direct choral music for a popular national radio show, The Railroad Hour.

Soon he was scoring for early television programs and for more than 80 Hollywood films. His Norman Luboff Choir recorded more than 75 albums over a period of 25 years, sometimes featuring solos by singers such as Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, and Jo Stafford. He took pains also to record classical choral music from the Renaissance to recent times as well; these recordings, however, did not receive the critical attention they deserved.

One of his most important legacies is his prolific output of engaging and accessible folk song arrangements, which helped preserve these beloved melodies from generation to generation. His vast and invaluable collection of scores and memorabilia was donated to the Library of Congress in 1993.

Selected Works:
A Capital Ship
All Through the Night
A-Roving
Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair
Dixie
Riders in the Sky
Skip to My Lou
Vigolin
Whoopee Ti Yi Yo
Yellow Bird

For more distinguished choral repertoire suggestions, please contact us.

Symphonically arranged by Mack Wilberg for larger choral forces, the five settings of beloved hymns contained in the collection My Song in the Night are handsomely scored for piano or organ with optional orchestral accompaniments.  Rich choral textures, generous use of divisi, and expertly crafted accompaniments bring a deep sonority to traditional hymns that will transform any worship space or concert hall into a great cathedral of song.  Give your listeners the joy of hearing: “Amazing Grace (New Britain);” “Down to the River to Pray;” “His Voice as the Sound (Samanthra);” “My God, My Portion and My Love (Dunlap's Creek);” and “My Song in the Night (Expression).”

For more repertoire suggestions for your worship or concert hall, please contact us.

The National Endowment for the Arts' American Masterpieces: Choral Music initiative is designed to celebrate our national musical heritage by highlighting significant American choral composers and their works of the past 250 years.  Stanton's Sheet Music is proud to present this series highlighting the composers and their works featured in this groundbreaking project.

(from NEA.gov)
The composer who can make a career almost exclusively from choral music has been a rarity since the Baroque era, but Morten Lauridsen (born 1943) has done it in our day, and while living, studying, and working in the same general area his entire life.

Born in the state of Washington, he was reared in Portland, Oregon, worked for the Forest Service near volcanic Mount St. Helens for a time, then studied composition at the University of Southern California where Halsey Stevens and Ingolf Dahl were among his distinguished teachers. He progressed rapidly to become a professor of composition at Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California, a position he has held for more than 30 years, chairing the department for 13 years.

From 1994 to 2001 he was Composer-in-Residence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, which frequently performed his works and helped to promote them around the world. Along with Randall Thompson, he is now one of America's most frequently performed choral composers - his works have appeared on more than 100 CDs.

“O Magnum Mysterium” is the best-known of his sacred a cappella motets and has become distributor Theodore Presser's best-selling choral octavo in its history dating back to 1783. It offers one of the most haunting vistas of Lauridsen's often serenely mystical style. Also high on the list of favorites are his Madrigali: Six Fire Songs on Italian Renaissance Poems, along with six other cycles taking their textual inspiration from around the globe: Mid-Winter Songs, Les Chansons des Roses (“En une seule fleur,” “Contre qui, rose,” “De ton rêve trop plein,” “La rose complete,” and “Dirait-on”), Cuatro Canciones, Nocturnes, Lux Aeterna, and A Winter Come.

Selected Works:
Ave Dulcissima Maria
Ave Maria
Lux Aeterna
Madrigali: Six Fire Songs on Italian Renaissance Poems
Mid-Winter Songs
O Magnum Mysterium
Ubi Caritas et Amor

For more distinguished choral repertoire suggestions, please contact us.

If you’re looking for a new sacred piano collection by Mark Hayes, there are three outstanding new collections that are available:

The Art of the Piano Vol 2 Christmas is for the advanced player featuring exquisitely arranged Christmas tunes including Gesu Bambino, O Come All Ye Faithful and What Child is This.

Mark Hayes Jazz Hymns for the Intermediate Pianist is our best-seller from our 2011 Sacred Piano Reading Session.  You’ll love this jazzy collection written for the intermediate player in settings that include Hayes trademark jazz chords and “licks.”  This Little Light of Mine is sure to be a beloved favorite with the congregation!

Praise Classics features praise and worship arrangements that are artistically done by Mark Hayes.  These titles have become well-loved in the contemporary church.  Some of the selections include Shine Jesus Shine, There is a Redeemer and Spirit Song.

Mark Hayes has stated that one of his goals is to “empower church musicians” and he has certainly reached his goal with all of the music he has arranged over the years for piano, choral and other instrumentations.

The National Endowment for the Arts' American Masterpieces: Choral Music initiative is designed to celebrate our national musical heritage by highlighting significant American choral composers and their works of the past 250 years.  Stanton's Sheet Music is proud to present this series highlighting the composers and their works featured in this groundbreaking project.

(from NEA.gov)
R. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943) belonged to the generation before William Dawson and perhaps because of that has been less well-known until recently, but his achievements were no less impressive. He possessed sterling academic credentials including a doctorate from Harvard University and study with Nadia Boulanger at the Paris Conservatory.

As a concert pianist, he played at Carnegie Hall and other august venues. He was hired in 1933 to conduct a 16-voice choir for Stromberg-Carlson's weekly NBC radio broadcasts. In addition to writing prize-winning articles on “Negro music,” he edited notable collections of spirituals and folksongs. Dett also created his own distinctive arrangements of spirituals and composed several major works for chorus and orchestra.

Although he was clearly dedicated to the cause of African American music, he insisted on the right and even duty of African American musicians to avail themselves of Western European classical music forms. He believed that traditional African-American melodies and rhythms were fully amenable to being incorporated into operas, concertos, and orchestral concert music.

“Listen to the Lambs,” an anthem for eight-part mixed chorus written in 1914, is one of his best-known choral works. His collections of spirituals in his own arrangements are principally found in his publications Religious Folksongs of the Negro and the Dett Collection of Negro Spirituals. Other notable choral works include “Ave Maria” for baritone and four-part mixed chorus, and two oratorios based on spirituals, The Chariot Jubilee and The Ordering of Moses.

Selected Works:
Ave Maria
The Chariot Jubilee
Listen to the Lambs

For more distinguished choral repertoire suggestions, please contact us.

New from Eric Whitacre, “The City and the Sea” is a set of five settings on poems by E.E. Cummings.  According to Whitacre, the entire set is based on white key clusters on the piano - a compositional practice he playfully calls the “oven-mitt” technique.  i walked the boulevard vividly portrays an urban street scene, the meditative the moon is hiding in her hair features a chaconne-like left hand pattern in the piano, maggie and milly and molly and may breaks the characteristic clusters into arpeggios and features delightful wordplay, the tender as is the sea marvelous creates an image of the ebb and flow of the sea, and little man in a hurry closes the set with colorful contrasts, fun, humor and rhythmic wordplay.

Also now available from Whitacre are two high-quality choral collections - The Eric Whitacre Collection, and Light and Gold, which contains selections from his new CD of the same name - and a TTBB re-voicing of his stunning work The Seal Lullaby.  For more distinguished repertoire choices, please contact us.

Written as a special commission for the North Carolina Chapter of the Music Teachers National Association, Songs of Flight is a charming song set composed specifically for treble choirs by Andy Beck. In each movement, the thematic poetry is sheer delight for young singers and the musicality, ever-present. Songs include “Butterfly,” “Give Me a Kite,” “Making a Paper Airplane,” and “On an Eagle’s Wing” (the first and last of which are available as single chorals).

For more creative choices for young choirs, please contact us.

Following the strong affirmation for the reproducible format of Just for the Guys, Heritage Music Press presents Just for the Gals! With eight exceptional titles not previously available for SSA choirs, this high quality concert repertoire is a cost-saving reproducible collection format, complete with an accompaniment CD - all for just $5 per title for your entire choir, no matter the size. Featuring such talented composers as Victor Johnson, Mary Lynn Lightfoot, Linda Spevacek, Becki Slagle Mayo and Brad Printz, these titles provide exceptionally diverse musical styles as well as distinctive repertoire for emerging three-part treble choirs. A great economic value and great choral resource!

Also new this year is Hello Girls by Laura Farnell. This collection of five short songs for treble chorus was specifically created to provide traditional concert literature for beginning and developing ensembles. Careful attention is given to the needs of the young treble voice, along with good part-writing and appealing subject matter. Songs may be sung a cappella or accompanied, making this especially good for contest programming.

For more distinctive repertoire for your treble ensembles, please contact us!

Stanton's is pleased to welcome back Mark Hayes as our clinician for the August Church Choral Music reading session! Hayes’ personal catalog of over 700 vocal and instrumental compositions is widely acclaimed and performed across the nation. He is well-known for his unique choral settings which draw from such diverse styles such as gospel, jazz, pop, folk, and classical to achieve a truly “American sound.” His music can be found in the music libraries of the finest churches and universities in the country, and he is in increasing demand for choral clinics and concerts.

Click to watch video

Your registration includes a packet of over 40 new choral anthems that are hand-picked from the hundreds published each year. We look forward to seeing you on August 13th for a wonderful morning of singing with one of the nation's most sought after church music experts.

This is the day is a beautiful setting of verses from the psalms commissioned from English composer John Rutter by Westminster Abbey for the wedding of HRH Prince William of Wales and Catherine Middleton.  It was first performed on 29 April 2011 by the combined choirs of Westminster Abbey and the Chapel Royal, in the presence of the royal family, and was broadcast live to millions across the globe.  With elegant melodic lines and warm harmonies, This is the day is perfectly suited to performance at a wedding or special occasion, and would make a joyous addition to any concert or service.

For more distinguished choral repertoire, please contact us.

Click here to watch video

The National Endowment for the Arts' American Masterpieces: Choral Music initiative is designed to celebrate our national musical heritage by highlighting significant American choral composers and their works of the past 250 years.  Stanton's Sheet Music is proud to present this series highlighting the composers and their works featured in this groundbreaking project.

(from NEA.gov)
Decades ago Time magazine called Ned Rorem (born 1923) “the world's best composer of art songs” and few have challenged that judgment since. Though he has written exceptionally fine orchestral music (his suite Air Music won the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for music), his songs and choral pieces seem destined to remain his best-known legacy, in part because they are so performer-friendly, but most importantly because audiences find them full of striking and beautiful ideas.

He was born in Richmond, Indiana, then moved with his family to Chicago as a child. He began piano lessons and was enchanted by Debussy and Ravel. His later studies were at Northwestern University School of Music, The Curtis Institute, and The Juilliard School. Along the way, he served briefly as Virgil Thomson's copyist and studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood.

From 1949 to 1958 he lived in France, composing and writing his diaries. Uniquely, Rorem early on became just as famous for his literary efforts - which now total 14 books of music criticism, lectures, and his frank personal diaries - as for his music. His inner life has thus become perhaps the most public of any composer in history.

His outstanding choral works, many with organ accompaniment, encompass a variety of anthems, canticles, motets, and hymns. Among them are “Shout the Glad Tidings,” a setting of an 1826 hymn text, the Three Motets on texts by Gerard Manley Hopkins, and the beautiful anthem of peace, “Sing, My Soul, His Wondrous Love.”

Selected Works:
A Whitman Cantata
Canticles, Set I
Canticles, Set II
In Time of Pestilence
Sing, My Soul, His Wondrous Love
Three Motets
Three Poems of Baudelaire

For more distinguished choral repertoire suggestions, please contact us.