Prairie, July 2020

Early evening in the prairie, 7/13/20. 

Lupines in the foreground, Scarlet gilia, Gaillardia, Clarkia... This area was restored in 2014-15.  It takes awhile to catch on.

Published

Today I found out that my composition for choir, "Canntaireachd," will be published by Pavane Music Publishing, a real publishing company in the LA area specializing in choral music.  I don't have a release date, and during this pandemic adventure they are in a kind of suspended animation, waiting for a time when people will again sing in choirs. Though I am officially an old guy, and have worked as a composer for four decades, I have never had a piece published.  Flying Fish supposedly "published" my music on their records, but you couldn't buy a score anywhere.  People who commissioned my work liked it, but they had no idea how to reach publishers.  This will be actual music that people can buy, and their choir can sing it, assuming we get past this odd time of pandemic and choirs again gather to sing.

I had written this piece for the male vocal ensemble Chanticleer in 1990.  They didn't commission it, but a guy I went to college with was in the group, and they came through UCSD as I was finishing up my Masters degree.  I met them for lunch there in San Diego, and I pitched an idea of a piece for them based on sung dance music from Scotland.  This is what you do if you're a composer.  They encouraged me and the director said they would absolutely look at what I sent them, and I sent them my finished piece in the fall of 1990.  I tried to write something that would be a showpiece, and I sent it off sure that they would love it.

It's hard to explain this, but I am definitely an "outsider" in the world of composers.  I never fit in with the academic scene, and I would never be hip enough, or live in NYC, to reach that artsy world.  I have had no luck whatsoever in reaching anyone who would publish my music.  I thought maybe one of my liturgies would be published, but... no one would even ever look at them.  Without a mentor promoting my music to a publisher in the academic world, nothing would ever happen there.  I never have had any success with my music unless I can get it directly to audiences or to artists.  So, I was hopeful that "Canntaireachd" would open a door for me with Chanticleer.

But I heard nothing for 13 years.  I wondered if I had made some horrible error, but when the WSU Madrigal Singers performed it, it completely rocked.  It was a mystery.  Then, out of the blue in 2003, it turned out that Chanticleer was performing it all over the world.  Audiences loved it, but they wouldn't commission anything ("we haven't seen enough of your work..."), didn't put it on a record.  I got nothing.  Not a penny.  There is some weird story there, but I have no idea...  So, the music just sat there in my files. 

Then, I happened to get interviewed a month ago for a piece in an online music magazine about what musicians are doing during the quarantine, and my project, as a traditional fiddle player (who can read, but still...) to memorize the Bach solo violin "Chaconne" intrigued the editor (I'm getting that done!  I have the first 2/3 and chunks of the last third...).  The writer decided to look at my still-at-the-moment not-entirely-slick website, and because she is in a choir, decided to listen to the posted live performance of "Canntaireachd."  She loved it and wondered where she could get a copy of the score for her choir.  I laughed and said that I was a completely unpublished composer.  It made my day how stunned she was at that, and she put me in touch with Pavane Music Publishing, and today they agreed to publish this piece.  Just like that.