I’m pleased (and humbly grateful!) to announce that I’ve been awarded the 2009 Raabe Prize For Excellence in Sacred Music Composition from the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians. Every two years, they offer a prize for a piece written in the last five years, that represents a “larger history of excellence on the part of the composer, who need not be Lutheran.” It says a lot about their commitment to excellent church music that they’re willing to award this prize even outside their denomination. I entered my “in paradisum…” which was premiered at BJU last May, and apparently it was received well by the judges!
To provide some context, the past two winners (2007 and 2005) were David Cherwein and John Ferguson. (!) See more info here.
in paradisum… will, as a result, be performed at the ALCM Biennial Conference in Milwaukee, in August 2009, where the award will be formally announced.
Additionally…I’ve known for some time that I’m a finalist in another international contest I entered several months ago…but the official announcement of the finalists isn’t being made until the official announcement of the winners- so I’m having to bide my time on that one… 
I think it would be a long shot for me to win this other contest, but I’m more than pleased at being a finalist in it! More details as things are officially announced…sometime?
The newest chorus and orchestra CD from Soundforth, God of Mercy, is now available! Visit www.soundforth.com, or call 1.800.258.7288.
Here’s a picture of me and my new nephew- click here. This is Ephrem, the brother of Etsegenet, the little girl whose death inspired Good Night Dear Heart. For more info on my dear brother’s newly expanded family, visit his blog here.
Here’s the final excerpt from the Soundforth CD, “God of Mercy”, which will be released this coming Thursday (Actually Wednesday night). This is the closing track, “There Is A Fountain”- a beautiful early American hymn tune.
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Soundforth Music: www.soundforth.com, or 1.800.258.7288
I’ve revised this post to include newly posted files, with newest files at the top, and older files to the bottom. All my arrangements, recorded on the God Of Mercy CD which will be released next week by SoundForth Music.
NEWLY POSTED: Beneath The Cross of Jesus- a newer, very moving hymn text and tune, arranged here for piano, two flutes, and choir. This has already been used in a couple weddings, and has been very well received…
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How Firm A Foundation, in a vigorous early-American-influenced style
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Here Is Love (not to be confused with the other setting of that text that has been floating around- this is the same text, but it’s an arrangement of the original Welsh tune from the late 1800s/early 1900s). This setting is newly published by Hal Leonard.
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The CD recording of my latest piano book, In Remembrance, is now available from Soundforth. It’s very inexpensively priced, at 7.95, since its primary purpose is as a “demo” of the piano book… but I hope it’ll be a great blessing, spiritually, and musically, to all listeners, whether pianists or not.
As the title implies, all the tracks are hymns about Christ’s death- so it’s a timely release with Easter approaching, as well.
To order, call Soundforth at 1.800.258.7288, or you can order online by clicking here.
I’ve had another long silence on here- since Christmas break I’ve written virtually no music, and have been busy with a couple major projects at my house, producing the next SoundForth CD, and keeping my teaching up to date. I think there will be several things to blog about in the coming weeks, however, so things should start being more active here.
For right now, take note of BJU’s HymnFest this coming Sunday (March 
at 2:30 PM in the Founder’s Memorial Amphitorium, which will include only the second performance ever of my new choral/orchestral setting of How Firm A Foundation (Hinshaw Music 2009). The orchestrally accompanied version was premiered by a mass choir of 600 (!) in Mississippi a couple months ago, but I wasn’t able to attend- so I’m looking forward to hearing it live for the first time Sunday.
It’s also on the forthcoming Soundforth CD…more about that later.
