Choralicious!

We’d like to officially welcome John Shea into the YRM “home” of composers!

John’s day job is as an associate professor of economics at the University of Maryland at College Park. He has a great passion for music as well, and has an active life as a composer and musician. He sings in his local UU choir and is a member of the Unitarian Universalist Musicians Network. He has studied composition with Tom Benjamin, whom he considers a mentor in the world of choral music.

John writes appealing, tonal choral music featuring strong melodies and a variety of styles, including Latin jazz, gospel and pop. YRM is proud to publish two of John’s choral compositions:

A Mother’s Carol, for SATB chorus, bass (optional) and piano, is a jazz waltz setting of a text written by his wife, April Lee. The lyrics express a mother’s concerns and hopes for her newborn child. Click here to view the first six pages of the score.

When There is Light in the Soul, for solo voice, SATB chorus and piano, is a gospel-style waltz setting of a well-known Chinese proverb. Click here to view the first six pages of the score.

June through July seems to be the season when most choruses begin planning their winter/holiday concerts. So, to help acquaint you with what YRM offers for your concert programming needs, we’ll frequently be posting over the next couple of months about new pieces and catalog favorites that feature themes of winter time and of the holidays… Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Winter Solstice.

First up is a new piece by Diane Benjamin titled Snow Might Fly, composed for SAA, oboe and piano. This music is a joyous and exuberant setting of Becky Karush’s lyrics about a moment captured on a wintry day. Nostalgia, family, nature… a simpler life.

Snow Might Fly (view the first four pages of the score by clicking on the link)