ForrestWorks

The official announcement about the Vanguard Voices contest has been posted on the Vanguard Site:

http://www.vanguardvoices.org/premieres.html

More good news: Beckenhorst is also publishing “Hosanna To The King”, this fall. It’s a Palm Sunday anthem in tresillo rhythm (3+3+2) in the choral parts, and organ accompaniment. Howard Helvey compared it to Rutter’s “O Be Joyful”, if that helps describe it. It’s a bit unusual for me, but I really like it, and I’m thrilled Craig will be putting it in print!

Craig Courtney let me know today that Beckenhorst will be publishing “Hymn of Mercy” this fall. (I never cease to be thankful for every acceptance letter, considering the stack of rejections I’ve accumulated in past years!) I’ve had the text sitting on my desk for months, but I finally set it to music a few weeks ago. It’s a beautiful Eileen Berry text (is that redundant?), inspired by God’s mercy as revealed in the minor prophets. Eileen is a national treasure- I don’t know of anyone else alive today who combines such doctrinal soundness/depth of content with such careful artistry with words. Her ability to present Truth in an aesthetically beautiful and emotionally powerful way is unmatched in anyone else I’ve ever met. I have yet to see a text of hers that I’m not interested in setting- and I’ve set about 20 of her texts so far!
Anyway, back to Hymn of Mercy- the music style is quite different for me- Craig labelled it “very Celtic”. It’s something like that, anyway. It’s folk-sounding, and has a flute obbligato, but I think, as a whole, it’s quite different from other pieces. Hopefully it’ll be well-received in November, when it comes out.

Vanguard Voices announcement: The official email announcing results came out last week, but I’m still waiting for the post on their website…

Arise, Shine! is basically done- at least the score, that is. I’m working on tweaking things, fixing little notation errors, and making a virtual instrument mock-up of it. It’s so nice to not be wrestling with it any more! I think it came out really well- it’s exactly what I wanted it to be (which, as any fellow composers know, doesn’t always happen!). I can’t wait to hear it in Carnegie Hall with the New England Symphonic Ensemble instead of in my living room with fake instruments!
DE PROFUNDIS: Still simmering…I’m about to turn the burner on high….:-)

West Valley Commission: We’re nailing down the texts. I have a few texts about stars and the universe that I’m pondering…I’m trying to decide on what style to use, instrumentation, etc…

Church Anthems: I’m waiting to hear from various publishers on several different anthems, including several previously written ones, and two new ones…

Kids4Truth: All twelve songs are now done, praise the LORD! We’re looking into options for doing a REALLY top-notch recording of them, with professional orchestra and the Indianapolis Children’s Choir. It may be a pipe dream- we’ll see. Where Bob Roberts is involved, I’ve learned to dream big!

Christmas Cantata: The majority of the choral parts have been recorded under the outstanding direction of David Rasbach, who has done an incredible job with it. It’s going to be really superb, I think. Joan Pinkston is working on getting orchestral parts recorded this week, the children’s choir is recording this week, and we hope to be mixing in a couple weeks. I may be heading to Greenville to attend the mixing session- we’ll see…

Hinshaw editing: I got all the piano reductions for Words From Paradise done; I’m waiting for proofs from Hinshaw, now…

Piano duet book: I’ve been working on the revisions/editing/proofing of my two piano duet books with Soundforth. It’s a long process as there are a lot of things to revise and consider…

Heartland Men’s Chorale: I finished the TTBB/TTBB double choir version of Amen, a few weeks ago, and got that sent to its commissioning group. Also, I pitched it to Hinshaw, and they’re taking a look at it. I’m not sure what kind of market there is for a men’s double choir piece, but I figured it was worth asking…

Wow. I got my copy of Sibelius a few days ago, and have been playing around with it, reading the manual, etc. I started to write a post about the ways in which it seems better than Finale, but I literally quit because it was going to be waaaaay too long to post on here- it was going to take forever to type. Everywhere I turn, I see things that are faster, lighter, quicker, easier, more intuitive, more flexible, more ingenious, more creative, more user-friendly,…..get the idea? I’d need a lot more time to use it to really make a comprehensive, fair, and definitive judgement, (perhaps familiarity is what has breeded my contempt with Finale?) but Sibelius has absolutely wow-ed me, while Finale continues to irritate me to no end! No wonder Jim Barnes and John Rutter (to name a couple!) use Sibelius!

By the way, Sibelius claims to be the world’s best-selling notation software…that’s a surprise to me…? Are they really?

PS) The rough draft for Arise, Shine! (which has consumed the last 2-3 weeks of my life) is almost complete…

Got a letter from Hinshaw today- they’ll be publishing “You Are The Music,” the piece that just won the Vanguard contest. Yippee! It’ll take a while for Hinshaw to get it in print- which is ok because the contest rules prohibit publication before July 2007. But I’m glad it’ll be available to the choral world, at some future point, from Hinshaw.

Hinshaw is now my second most populated publisher, with seven pieces accepted; Beckenhorst maintains a narrow lead with eight.