Sometime ago (a couple of months), a popular choral composer ignited a firestorm by blasting artist owned (self-published) choral compositions on social media. He suggested that there was a lack of quality among the artist owned pieces and that there was a need for major publishing houses to act as curators, separating bad from good. The resulting “discussion” was predictably volatile. The composer removed the post, and has not referenced it since, and so I am leaving his name anonymous. However, his premise was, in my opinion, faulty, and likely based on minimal acquaintance with artist owned choral repertoire.

Before one casts off the possibility of searching for artist owned music as not worth one’s time, remember how much wading you do to find gems from popular choral publishing companies. The search is worth it. Over the past 10 years, where I’ve programmed significant amounts of both “traditionally” published and artist owned choral pieces, I’ve found the percentage of success in the search has been quite comparable between the two.

For many conductors, the issue is how to efficiently find the great artist owned music. Following are a few tips.

1. First, believe great artist owned choral music exists. Almost every piece, whether artist owned or traditionally published, was at one time artist owned. A very select few pieces were guaranteed traditional publication before they were completed. If it exists, you can encounter it. While this is logical, on a practical level, this requires a philosophical shift for some conductors.
2. Make use of social media to encounter great pieces (whether traditionally published or artist owned). For example, repertoire questions and searches in Facebook groups for choir conductors yield myriads of suggestions, much of which is artist owned. Take time to peruse the pieces suggested.
3. Frequent artist owned choral music distributing sites such as MusicSpoke and Swirly Music, which are loaded with great pieces from great composers. One can also find quality sheet music on JW Pepper’s MyScore and Sheetmusicplus’s SMP press, although one has to wade through a much higher percentage of junk to find the gems.*
4. Search the websites of composers you like. Many composers, even those who are traditionally published, will have many high quality artist owned pieces that they are retailing exclusively on their own sites or that are linked to an artist owned sheet music retailer.
5. Have conversations with composers at music conferences. Ask for sample scores in a particular voicing. Composers typically love to share their material with interested conductors.
6. Follow this blog by subscribing to the newsletter. (This is admittedly a shameless plug, take it or leave it) I regularly search for great artist owned choral pieces, write about and link to purchase pages. I generally pick pieces that have full perusal scores and recordings for ease of use by searching conductors.

*disclaimer: I retail sheet music with MusicSpoke and Sheetmusicplus.

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I hope this has been helpful and informative!

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