I recently posted on my FaceBook newsfeed a little meme (see illustration) about the piece of mine which is surely better known than any other, Sing Me to Heaven. Indeed, it may be better known than all of the others combined. I am profoundly grateful on a daily basis for the piece, for its presence in my catalog, and for its effect on my career. Goodness knows, many other doors have been opened for me as a direct result of that little a cappella motet. I have been writing choral and organ music professionally for something over forty years and doing so full-time for nearly twenty. It’s a wonderful way to make a life and any of the other people who also do it would surely agree.
Here’s a fact you may not have realized: we composers don’t hear about more than a tiny fraction of the performances of our works. We don’t know when they have been chosen for your Spring Concert, featured by that All State chorus or sung when you went on tour to Prague, Paris or Paducah. We sometimes wonder, and then worry, whether this or that really fine bit of work, ever gets a chance to touch the hearts of your singers and audiences, or lift the spirits of people in your community. Sure, we get to see the sales numbers, and that helps a bit, but what we don’t get are the stories about the piece acting in people’s lives to lift them up and leave them changed.
So here is our cry: let all the composers who are still around hear from you about your experiences with our pieces! Seek us out on FaceBook or Twitter, send us a quick email, drop us a postcard! If you got a decent recording, post it or send it! I promise that your effort will be appreciated. I can’t make it any easier for you to reach any of the other composers out there (I lost my contact info for Handel in a hard disk incident some time back), but I can make it easy for you to reach me: My email address is Gawthrop@DunstanHouse.com and I’m on FaceBook. Send me a letter or even a postcard at 717 Wirsching Avenue West, Twin Falls, ID 83301.
Keep those cards and letters coming!
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