MORE FROM THE 2015 ACDA CONFERENCE IN SALT LAKE CITY
Here is a blog I am sharing written by the fine composer/accompanist Kurt Knecht. He and Jennifer Rosenblatt are the founders of the new choral music distributor, MusicSpoke, a very composer-friendly organization with a refreshingly new business model. They held a reading session on Wednesday of the ACDA conference in Salt Lake City which, especially for a Wednesday, was very well attended. Below is Kurt's blog, or you can click here and go directly to it. Here' Kurt's blog entry:
Normally, choir directors tell me that when they attend a reading session, they feel lucky to find one usable piece of music. It's a gold mine when they find two usable pieces from a session. After the MusicSpoke reading session at the National ACDA convention, two directors came up to me. One said, "I could easily use any piece on this reading session to great success with my group. Every piece is good." Another came to the booth later and said, "That was easily the strongest reading session I've attended."
I had the same reply for both of them. "Do you want to know why our reading session was so strong? I didn't pick any of the music. We put the power back in the hands of our composers and asked them what pieces they would like on the reading session."
Pete Eklund leading the session
A great deal of the success of the session was also because of the masterful job my friend Pete Eklund did in leading it. He got us through a lot of music very efficiently. He helped the readers through more difficult rhythmic passages. He said something interesting about each piece, and he acknowledged all of the composers. I couldn't have asked for a more professional and outstanding job. Many thanks, Pete!
My favorite part was just reading through the music of such fine composers together. Dale Trumbore and I even played a little impromptu piano duet on Winged Lullaby, and I haven't been able to get the tune out of my head since.
Here is a list of the pieces and links to performances on MusicSpoke. Please go check out the music and use it for your choirs.
I'm back in cold Chicago. The ACDA conference was epic, and I've already shared a bunch of things with you. Today, I am going to spotlight the new wave of composers who attended the conference and have opened up shop as independent publishers/distributors of their own music.
You can go visit my series of posts about this sort of thing by going here for the start of a seven-part series I did recently.
Here are composers, co-ops, and alternative distribution folks who had their own booths at ACDA 2015 in Salt Lake City. I hope you will click on the inks and learn more about these folks.
IMP- the collective that includes Jocelyn Hagen, Abbie Betinis, J David Moore, et al
I am now working with MusicSpoke, a brand new, composer-friendly distributor. We had a very successful reading session at the conference, led by Pete Eklund. Co-founder Kurt Knecht has up-and-coming young composers Dale Trumbore and Connor Koppin, and other talented composers onboard. You'll be seeing some other "name" established composers joining soon as well. Here are the pieces I currently have at MusicSpoke.
Also Northwest Choral Composers (Karen P. Thomas, Reg Unterseher, and John Muehleisen) were also present and handing out info, though they did not run a booth.
This is the wave of the future- a lot of composers who have decided that they can be their own best advocate for the music they write, especially if the piece in mind is not a three-minute EZ octavo. I predict we will see more and more high-end quality-music boutique composer booths in the coming years, especially by the time ACDA 2017 rolls around (to be held in Minneapolis).
Hello, kiddies. It's Wednesday- the very first day of ACDA in Salt Lick City. The weather is gorgeous- about 50 degrees and that strong sun you get at elevations like this. We Midwesterners and Easterners who have been hit hard by snow and/or epic frigidness are already enjoying being here.
Caveat- I'm blogging while crazy busy here- if my grammar and syntax isn't perfect, please forgive! Also, as attendees, including myself, become more and more sleep-deprived we sometimes say idiotic things- so you might see this here as well.
So let me say this right out- the Salt Lake Convention Center is HUGE. You have no idea! And thankfully the whole city is on a total grid- so it's hard to get lost.
I started the day off visiting the booths here. Plenty of 'em, also giving away lots of swag. Everybody seems super-energized but-hey, it's Wednesday! And honestly, I have NEVER seen this many people already on site for an ACDA on Wednesday. Tim Sharp, our fearless leader, says that pre-registration is at a record-setting level. I believe him. I'm also seeing a TON of attendees between 20-30 years old. Yay!
After just milling around and seeing plenty of friends in the booth area I went to the MusicSpoke reading session at noon. MusicSpoke is a new venture by Kurt Knecht and Jennifer Rosenblatt. Pete Eklund from U of Nebraska led the reading session which held works by Andrea Ramsey, Kurt Knecht, myself, and some young up-and-coming composers like Josh Rist and Connor Koppin. The session went very well--and honestly, it was some of the best sightreading I have ever been around at a conference!
After that, I attended the first blue track concert. Here are the groups that sang and their repertoire:
Univ. of South Cali Thornton School of Music Chamber Singers, directed by my friend Mike Scheibe,
Batter my Heart, Three-Personed God, by Richard Nance
The Heart's Reflection, by Daniel Elder
De Circuito Aeterno, by Petr Eben (1929-2007)
Trois Chansons Bettones, by Henk Badings (1907-1987)
Alleluia, by Jake Runestad
Micro-review (the opinions expressed on this blog are mine only, and if you want to disagree, do so, but don't hassle me about my right to express my opinions--thank you very much)
MIRANDA sez "no haters"
A beautiful, deep, rich sound from the USC Chamber Choir, especially on the first two selections. A warm, velvety sound you just want to collapse into, like sinking into a brand-new five thousand dollar leather sofa which has been lubed up with cocoa butter. Bravo, USC.
I was really thrilled to hear the Eben and the Badings (I actually know Badings' music fairly well). We just don't hear this kind of mid-twentieth century repertoire at ACDA conferences, which is unfortunate. So bravo, Mike, for sharing these very rich, full-dimensional pieces with us, and they were pieces which really showed off this choir's strong points. I can't overstate how happy I was to hear some music that has been sort of forgotten about featured in front of a large audience.
BYU Womens Chorus, directed by Jean Applonie
Psalm 100, Rene Clausen
Wie Lieblich sind deine Wohnungen, Joey Flat-Nose Rheinberger
Reflections from Yad Vashem, Daniel Hall
Amazing Grace, arr. Michael Hanawalt
Adon Olam, by Eliezer Gerovitsch, arr. David Zabriskie
Micro-review: Jean pulled an amazing variety of dynamics from a choir which, I am guessing, numbered 120 or maybe way more. A gorgeous sound all around- bravo. The harpist on the Rheinberger, Anamae Anderson, was fantastic. This is a very notey harp part, which can be a real challenge (I used to play harp, btw), but Miss Anderson was spot-on throughout. And let me add, Rheinberger has had a resurgence in performances lately, which is a good thing. I love his harmonies and the fact that they exist within a (modest) contrapuntal framework- best of both worlds.
The Metropolitan Chorus of Tokyo, directed by Ko Matsushita
Sacred music in Latin composed by Ko Matshutshita
Japanese folk songs arrgned by Ko Matsushita
Micro-review:
You either loved or hated this performance.
Pluses-- the music by Matsushito isn't shy-- it's bold and full of tons of divisi. There was no safety net. Dynamics were extreme, especially on the high end. Kind of like a double IPA or beyond, if ya know your beer talk. Or a big Cab at 14.5%.
Minuses (where I pretty much weigh in- though some people totally disagreed with me and I punched them in the larynx)-- I felt they never tuned any of this often quite dissonant music due to their method of sound production -- all way back in the throat. The murky, turgid hyper-divisi issues just made it even harder to hear intonation and also scope the arc of the pieces. The lack of tuning, to me and a few other friends I polled, was extremely distracting. I also felt that the Latin on the first few pieces was simply bizarre to the ear. It could have been Yiddish and I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.
What was very good is that this choir and its composer/conductor challenged us and provoked a bit of discussion. You have to ask- do we want pretty all the time and nothing to argue about? Or something else at times? And do we really always have to agree?
The Evening Program
Kings' Singers and the Real Group
Heavily attended, especially by the young folk, those precious and endearing cute and cuddly millenials (sorry, I'm being very silly)! ACDA is no longer so heavily populated by old folks. We needed this youth movement and in the last 3-4 years it has really happened!
Fearless ACDA leader Tim Sharp gave a state of the organization speech. It was pretty great and I hope to share it with you soon, thanks to Tim. You will like what he had to say abut where we are and where we are going!
Micro-reviews: Hmmm, do I want to diss "institutions"? Nah, not right now. But I do wish Kings' Singers would add something new to their gig. Something, anything?! I feel Swingle Singers has evolved over the years, so it proves evolution is possible, ja?
Real Group- I am a HUGE fan, especially of the true vocal jazz they become famous for back aways. This night was more about new tunes with a rock beat, I guess you could call it. Many of these songs had great, social issues lyrics which were not cheesy. So I dug that as did most of the audience. I just wish that they would have done more of the stuff that absolutely kills me- fer instance something like this:
And this was amusing- they launched into Chili con Carne and every 15 to 30 year old went crazy- and then they only sang 8 bars and morphed into a different one of their hits over the years. It was pretty funny to see them fake out the audience! All in all they were great fun and their love of music and performing shone through.
NEXT: Thursday at ACDA, including an absolutely stunning performance by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir!
Another post in anticipation of the 2015 ACDA national conference in Salt Lake City.
I'm going to gab about my carol book here, since my arrangement of "What Child is This" from the book is in the women's choir reading session next Thursday morning. The session is chaired by Iris Levine and I am sure there will be some awesome music for all to hear and read through. I am especially in awe of Iris's choice in literature.
My book, "Carols, distinctive arrangements for women's voices" has been a pretty big hit. I'm proud that I did all the work myself--I wrote all the music (traditional carols, plus some new compositions on trad. texts), worked with a cover designer and printer so that I would have complete control of the product, as well as not give away my copyrights or sales income. It was a daunting task, but I survived it! I think I spent about nine months straight living and creating Christmas carols! Ho ho ho!
And finally, here is a youtube of Mandala directed by Sean Ivory singing four of the carols. The soloist on "There is No Rose of Such Virtue" (a new composition on the old text) has an absolutely amazing voice, especially for a high school singer.
So there you have it- my carols book which will be featured a bit at next Thursday morning's women's choir reading session. I will start that hour at the children's choir session and then try to get to the women's session about halfway through. And if you'd like to meet up with me, I will be at booth 8014 (the great new company MusicSpoke) Thursday afternoon from 3 to about 5. You can also sign up to talk to me during the meet the composers session later that same day.
Today in our series is a guest blog from MusicSpoke, a very new company started by talented composer/accompanist Kurt Knecht and his wife, the entrepreneur Jennifer Rosenblatt. This company launched in July of this year and has already attracted composers such as Andrea Ramsey, Dale Trumbore, Connor Koppin, and Timothy Tharaldson. MusicSpoke has turned the traditional model on end- they have taken a totally new course in publishing and their utilization of start-up funding, and other help from a business accelerator, NMotion, based out of Lincoln Nebraska, is brilliant. The rate of royalties for MusicSpoke composers is incredibly high! Here is the guestblog from Kurt:
What if getting your music into the hands of a conductor meant you didn’t have to settle? What if the working relationship between composers and performers simply…worked?
Paul has done a wonderful job explaining some of the frustrations facing composers today. About a year ago, I was dealing with some of the same frustrations. I felt like I should get a bigger cut from my publishers. I was tired of forfeiting my copyright and seeing pieces “die.” I also wanted a closer connection with the people buying and performing my music.
My wife is a successful entrepreneur. One day she said, “We need to fix this problem. If we can fix it for you, we should fix it for everyone.” That’s how MusicSpoke was born. Above all, MusicSpoke is about creating community between composers, conductors, and performers.
We began by talking to lots of composers. They all had the same frustrations that Paul so eloquently outlined: giving up copyright and control of original works, not receiving a fair share of the revenue, and no way to find out who is purchasing the music. After speaking with composers, we started talking to conductors. The conductors we talked to had two main complaints. They wanted to be able to hear and see the entire score before purchasing it. Too many had been burned by buying a piece that suddenly split into eight parts on the page you couldn’t see. They also wanted a convenient way to interact with composers. So we built MusicSpoke.
MusicSpoke is a marketplace, not a publisher. We are a tool to build community and help composers get their music into the hands of conductors. We put composers’ scores on a website where conductors can search, hear, see, and purchase the music. Best of all, the conductors can rate the pieces, send messages to the composers, ask questions about the music, or even set up a Skype rehearsal.
We let the composers control their own music. Since we are a marketplace and not a publisher, the composers retain their copyrights. If we use Paul’s $1 analogy, [click here for that discussion in an earlier blogpost] we give the composers 70 cents of every dollar instead of 10 cents. We are using the 30 cents that we keep to maintain the marketplace and promote the composers through advertising and conferences.
This summer, we were accepted into the NMotion Accelerator program in Lincoln, Nebraska that came with seed funding and a 100 day intensive start-up program. In addition to the initial $20,000 funding from the NMotion Accelerator, MusicSpoke was recently awarded a $50,000 prototyping grant from the State of Nebraska. Since launching in July of 2014, MusicSpoke has had over 14,000 page views and has increased sales 245% month over month. We have already expanded into art song and will continue to expand into additional genres.
We are the ideal team to create a new model for composers and conductors. I am a composer, conductor, and performer, so I am personally invested in finding a better solution for all of us. If I were just another composer trying to figure out a solution alone, I wouldn’t have much of a chance. I’m fortunate to be married to a very brilliant lady. My wife and co-founder, Jennifer, has already built a successful, award winning business. Her company, Argyle Octopus Press, is in its fourth year of business and was recently awarded the SBA 2014 Nebraska Small Business of the Year for CD1. She has the business and marketing background to make this idea into a sustainable and thriving alternative to traditional publishing. MusicSpoke is what happens when a musician and an entrepreneur get together. We have already collaborated on other successful projects including Zach (age 22) and Avi (age 19). We are excited to build something that creates a stronger community and a more equitable solution for all of us.
Please visit the site at musicspoke.com and feel free to drop us a note at notes@musicspoke.com to share your thoughts. Most of all, check out our wonderful composers. We are adding new ones all the time. They are super people writing amazing music. When you use MusicSpoke, you can be confident that the majority of your money is actually going to the people who create the music that you love.
Jennifer is the cofounder and CEO of MusicSpoke. She is an entrepreneur with a diverse background in business, marketing, and sales. Her award winning company, Argyle Octopus Press, helps with the design and marketing for MusicSpoke. Learn more and connect with Jennifer at http://about.me/jennifer.rosenblatt.
Thanks to my friend Sean Burton, I have been made aware that Iowa ACDA (a very large, forward-thinking and successful ACDA chapter) has created a new Repertoire and Standards position. Connor Koppin, a promising young composer/conductor, has been named as R and S for self-published and independently published music. This is further proof that ACDA is moving more and more toward supporting independent composers and broadcasting awareness of the gradual tilting away from the ancient, traditional publishing model in this country for music. I've written about this quite a bit (in this blog form as well as in give and take on Choralnet) and hosted a very successful interest session on the topic at the national ACDA conference in Dallas about eighteen months ago. In case you missed it, my panel members were Reg Unterseher, Abbie Betinis, Joan Szymko, Buddy James, and Deborah Simpkin-King. Most of our audience stayed a full hour after the session ended (pretty much unheard of at an ACDA conference since there are so many other activities you can trot off to) to ask questions and kick around new ideas- it was a great day!
For Iowa ACDA Connor will be focusing on composers who are obviously self-publishing in a professional manner (well-run websites, aiming for healthy relationships and visibility in the choral community, etc) and smallish publishers who are moving away from the old model. These publishers (would they be called niche publishers or not?) are especially becoming more aware of composer copyright issues, new distribution models, more awareness of the need to publicize the "back catalog" and not just hype new releases, and more. Here are a few of the new small, independent, forward-thinking organizations: Independent Music Publishers (or IMP, a great acronym!) which is home to Betinis, Szymko, Davd Moore, and a number of other quality composers, mostly from Minnesota, has already become quite successful. A new organization, Musicspoke, started by Kurt Knecht and Jennifer Rosenblatt, is also arriving on the scene with a great flurry of activity and attracting great attention from quality composers (Coppin himself, Andrea Ramsey, yours truly, and others). Musicspoke especially is on the forefront in regard to copyright issues- they facilitate composer/conductor relations and sell music without taking away the composers' copyright. Bravo to Musispoke for that stance.
Also up and coming is Northwest Choral Publishers which is the music of Reg Unterseher, John Muelheisen, and Karen P. Thomas. And there is also See a Dot- a new publisher in NY.
As composers and small publishers get together and discuss issues today (see below for some of Connor's thoughts) there is a wide variety of opinion about what is happening now. I think most independent composers truly dislike the old model (sign away your copyright, earn only 10%, have no say on how your music is publicized and what happens to your older pieces) but we accept the fact that the large, older companies who are in business have the right to run their companies any way they like. A number of them are barely staying alive, for one reason or another (the sale price of a typical choral octavo has in no way kept pace with inflation over the last fifty years) and we all are music lovers- I myself have somewhat mellowed out about my feelings toward these larger companies, mostly due to my growing feebleness in old age (haha).
We also have a great champion of self-published/niche published music as our executive director of ACDA on the national level- Tim Sharp, whose own recent workCome Away to the Skies: A High Lonesome Bluegrass Mass is published and distributed by his composing partner Wes Ramsey.
Here is the full Iowa ACDA announcement. Hey, if you are a state ACDA leadership person maybe your state should be thinking about all this!
REPERTOIRE and STANDARDS SELF PUBLISHED WORKS
Colleagues,
My name is Connor Koppin and I have been selected to represent ICDA as the R&S Chair for Self/Independent Published works. I am so thrilled to be chairing this entirely new R&S position for ICDA. For so long, composers have turned to traditional publishers and distributors as a means to sell music. We have now come to a turning point in the world of choral publications in which some of these publishers are failing to meet the needs of composers, conductors, and educators; thus, composers are turning toward alternative means of publication, i.e. self publishing and independent publishers.
Some of the issues that are associated with using traditional publishers consist of the following:
-- Composers often only receive anywhere from 8-10% of profits from each sale, a very small amount. One could imagine it would be nearly impossible to make a living off of such wages.
-- When a composer agrees to publish a piece through an outside company, they are fully surrendering all rights to a piece of music; thus, allowing a company to make choices that may not be in said pieces best interest.
-- More often than not, publishers and distributors arrive at decisions with solely a monetarily profitable mindset, and no other factors. Therefore, regardless of how brilliant a piece of music may be, if a company decides that it won't sell 5,000 copies a year, they will refuse to publish it. This could ultimately lead to the disintegration of some of the greatest contemporary works, a lack of ability to get the piece "out there".
-- Compositions may often be accepted for publication, and then never actually made available for purchase until a significant amount time has passed. For instance, should a publisher find another piece worthy of publication, it will alter it's publication schedule, and suspend publication of another composer's work until a more "convenient" time.
These are just a few of the many problems that living composers face when they are contemplating the outcome of a piece.
Supporting living composers is one of our most important roles as music educators and in order to do so we must make an effort to turn away from our standard process of selecting repertoire and look toward a new way of buying music.
Self and independent publication are methods which better meets the needs of BOTH composers and conductors. However, it is both my fear as well as the organization's, that we as conductors suffer from a lack of knowledge regarding this new age of selling and buying music. This R&S position has been created to enlighten ICDA and its members in regards to directly supporting composers in their efforts to create a more healthy method of business. I am so proud of our ACDA chapter for recognizing the much needed attention to this area of choral music. I am excited to bring some valuable information to you all and hopefully better inform ICDA; keeping us forward-looking and a leading state chapter of ACDA.
Connor Koppin (b.1991) is an award-winning composer and conductor of choral music. In 2013 he completed his bachelor of music education degree at Wartburg College where he studied conducting with Lee Nelson. His pieces have been performed across the United States by numerous choral ensembles in collegiate, high school, and liturgical settings. He has had pieces selected for a number of all-state festivals in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin and currently has music published with both Morning Star Music and ECS publishing. He is currently working at Roland-Story High School in Story City, IA as a Choral Director and serves as the R&S Chair for Self Publishing for ICDA.
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