On Publishing (Early Days)
A Dream Made Real!
For a young composer, one of the dreams you have is to see your name on a piece of professionally published music—well, at least for me. I had that dream realized earlier this year, when I got to see "Will the Rain Fall Down?" in print from Carl Fischer.
It's an interesting phenomenon that I'm sure has all sorts of parallels for people in other professions—when you finally get that dream realized, but you've sort of seen it coming (just through the process of signing papers and discussing it with those people to whom you are infinitely grateful for making it real) your next question is... "well, what next?"
I'm excited to say that I'm fairly certain my relationship with Carl Fischer is going to continue into next year's publishing cycle—thought I can't speak with any real authority on that yet. Additionally, "Io Vivat," in a TTBB voicing, is coming out very soon through Hal Leonard and Mark Foster Music. All of these publishers have been an integral part of the industry far longer than I've been alive, and it's a true honor to enter into the professional community in this small way.
The publishing industry, by its nature, has to serve the broadest population possible in order to continue to be viable. This is great news for me, as an emerging composer, because it means I'll have the opportunity to enter new areas of the country where my music hasn't been heard before (fingers crossed). With this, I hope I can meet more people and discover what they need for their ensembles. Do directors need more quality SAB music? More TB? Different ranges to define them? How about the professional and collegiate chorus community? Is there a market for contemporary texts based on Greek and Roman myths set in a modal, mixed-meter style? Well, probably not—but I wrote it anyway, ha.
Luckily, all that music has a home on MusicSpoke.com, which, in my humble opinion, is the best distributor for those off-the-beaten-path contemporary choral works. For example, after "Journeyman's Song" was turned down by multiple traditional publishers for reasonable reasons—difficult ranges, tricky leaps and melodies, etc.—it was welcomed with open arms to MusicSpoke. It's currently being performed at SWACDA and NCACDA honor choirs, and lives on as one of my most popular works. So everything has a home, and that's wonderful.
The point is, I'm really excited to see where things go. I'll continue to make my music available as widely as possible, and hopefully, some people out there will want to sing it.