Composer Michael John Trotta has prepared a cheat sheet full of vocal warm-ups to help you get your choir back in the swing of things and sounding better than ever.
Download Michael John Trotta’s Vocal Warm-Up Cheat Sheet here:
Continue reading ‘Vocal Warm-Up Cheat Sheet: An Easy Way to Improve the Sound of Your Choir’Guest post by composers Lee & Susan Dengler introducing their new Holy Week cantata, When Darkness Comes. Lee and Susan are the authors of over 400 choral anthems, cantatas and vocal and piano solo collections that are used worldwide. They have served as music leaders in churches, and have taught music on the elementary, high school and college levels. Both are professional singers and have performed in recitals, operas, oratorios and musicals. They reside in Goshen, Indiana.
Lee Dengler & Susan Naus Dengler
Easter was in mid-April that year. We who work in church music are relieved when Easter comes that late in the season, allowing adequate time to prepare for the music of Lent and Easter.
However, there was a lot going on in our house back then. We were awaiting the birth of our second child. The due date was April 1. Because of church responsibilities, we hoped that this baby would arrive on time. Rebecca Joy only made us wait two extra days before she appeared on the scene. Even though Palm Sunday was only two days later, we could fulfill our Holy Week responsibilities without too much stress.
There were, however, a few things that we hadn’t counted on. Continue reading ‘Lee & Susan Dengler: A Holy Week Cantata Reflecting on Sacrifice and Sorrow’
Bach vocal reaches its finale
Carus sets new standards in Bach editions
During the Reformation Jubilee Year, Carus-Verlag Stuttgart in co-operation with the Bach-Archiv Leipzig have completed their ambitious editorial project “Bach vocal” – the Stuttgart Bach Edition now contains Johann Sebastian Bach’s complete sacred vocal oeuvre. From now on, the choral and orchestral material of all the motets, masses, passions, oratorios, as well as more than 200 cantatas by the famous kantor of St. Thomas’s Church – all at the current state of research – is available from Carus. Here, Carus has set a new standard since within the realm of sacred vocal music, many works were last edited 50 or more years ago, and most of them did not include performance material.
Conductors, singers and instrumentalists were obliged to fall back on material from the 19th century which does not do justice to present-day standards with respect to historically informed performance practice. Many of the alterations in the music text which are based on most recent findings are indeed audible; they have been recorded on CD by the leading Bach interpreters of our era, for example, Frieder Bernius, Hans-Christoph Rademann and Masaaki Suzuki.
Continue reading ‘New Complete 23-Volume Bach Vocal Edition from Carus Verlag’
Take Note 
You must be logged in to post a comment.