2015 saw a significant interest increase in purchases and performances of my choral pieces. It was a truly exciting year as a composer. I am thrilled that many conductors are discovering and performing my pieces.
Like last year, I wanted to share my top five selling choral pieces of the past year (click here for the 2014 blog post). Three of the top five from 2014 are still on the list. Before the list is the rationale for making such a list. I hope it is useful and helps you discover some music you enjoy!
I think a list of the best selling pieces by a composer can be quite useful to conductors and performers. Why? Because the list is tried and true. All the pieces on such a list have been of sufficient interest to people to prompt purchases and performances.
1. My piece, “My Prayer,” for a cappella TTBB choir. “My Prayer” had a significant increase in sales, and has become my most popular piece for purchase by far.
2. My spiritual, “Soon One Day,” for a cappella SATB or TTBB choir (click here for the men’s choir version). This piece has been my most awarded/featured piece in the last year including being featured on choralnet.com, musicspoke.com, and in the 2015 Spring Edition of ACDA Minnesota’s publication, “The Star Of The North.” The TTBB version was also superbly performed by the Langowan 4 Male Choir of Langowan, Indonesia (Ricky Recky, conductor) for a choral competition in late fall, 2015. You can hear a recording of the performance here.
3. My setting of the famous Song of Solomon text, “Set Me As A Seal” for a cappella SATB choir.
4. My choral blessing, “The Lord Bless You,” for a cappella SATB choir.
5. My spiritual, “Sing Our Praise To God,” for a cappella SATB choir.
Hi Michael, I very much enjoyed looking at and listening to your varied selection of ‘top five’ pieces!
A couple of comments and questions. I really liked ‘Sing our Praise to God’, which was given a great performance by a live choir. How much do you feel the availability of a good recording has helped to get people interested in particular pieces? The digital recording (e.g. The Lord Bless You) makes much lesson an impact. In particular, I wonder how the Matthew Curtis recordings have helped. I’ve made use of his services once (http://www.swirlymusic.org/music/choral-music/gordon-thornett-beyond-grief-for-mixed-choir-satb-with-soprano-soloist/ ) for which he has made a super recording – but I don’t know yet whether this will generate any sales!
One further point about the pdfs of your pieces. Most of them appear quite small on my large monitor screen, so that it’s difficult to read them. This may be a problem with my own display, but I thought it worth mentioning.
Keep up the good work!
Gordon
Thanks for your comment Gordon!
I am glad you enjoyed listen to the pieces, and that you especially liked “Sing Our Praise To God.” I love that piece also!
I will email you a more detailed response, but nothing beats a good choral recording for truly showing what a piece can be like. However, a Matt Curtis recording can be quite helpful also, and has definitely brought significant interest to some of my pieces that would not have happened otherwise (especially “My Prayer”). I generally never use digital recordings, which I generally consider worse than no recording (usually) but I thought I would experiment with some digital renderings on a few of my service pieces for a while. It certainly does not do a piece justice, and I would never do it without an available perusal score.
Thanks for the feedback on the perusal scores. I have not heard of such a problem, or encountered when I’ve checked, but I will do some research.
God Bless,
Michael