S has decided to include a choral piece (SATB with piano accompaniment) in his composition portfolio and would like to have it recorded live - there are lyrics so a MIDI recording would be far from ideal. I’m wondering if anyone can recommend any specific organizations/ studios/ choral groups to contact? I’d like to ask for a few price quotes to see if it’s worth pursuing.
Is it difficult for a choral group that is used to singing traditional music, to sing? (In other words, is it new music-y?)How many singers are needed?
I would contact a local choral group (or the closest one) or even choirs and ask if they would do a reading. You could offer to pay each singer per hour, but chances are they will volunteer for a high school composer.
You can use an H2 Zoom to record. Recordings don’t have to be perfect, even at an advanced level. A church would have satisfactory acoustics.
It is tough to get pieces performed but getting a reading is possible. People really do like to help out young composers.
The difficulty with choral pieces is the number of people involved but they could do a reading by extending a rehearsal.
Yes, it is new music, and technically a bit challenging. I’ve contacted a local choral group (not that many I know of) which does both classical and sometimes pop music through the connection of a friend. But the price quote I got is unexpectedly high - 4 singers and 1 sound engineer would cost about 1.2K (in USD)!
I think getting a reading done in our local community is quite unlikely - even S’s teacher in his pre-college music school is not optimistic. So now I’m trying to see if help can be sought beyond our confined boundary. Any further suggestions would be appreciated.
Yikes.
You don’t need a sound engineer. He’ll need a recorder of his own for the future anyway: H-2 Zoom is used by most or whatever the latest version is.
The recordings aren’t anywhere near as important as the score. Four singers at $150 max each for a reading would be $600. Would they do that?
As you know there are paid services for this.
He could contact a gig office in a conservatory- they have those in the US anyway. But most are busy or not at school yet and I don’t think that is really a good prospect.
Do the schools he wants to apply to accept any pieces without recordings? I understand MIDI won’t have lyrics but he could provide them. Ask the schools.
For new music, many singers don’t get it so no matter what he won’t get a great reading most likely. I just want to repeat: it is the score that matters.
Does your son have recordings for the other pieces in his portfolio? It is not necessary to have a recording of every piece, though of course if possible it’s better, so long as at least some of the others are recorded it should be fine. As compmom said the score the most important thing of course, though having no recordings is probably too much.
So I’d say, if he thinks this choral piece is clearly stronger than whatever else he would use instead, I’d recommend submitting it even if you don’t manage to get a recording. But if there’s no particular need to include this piece and he has another one recorded of similar quality then go with that one. And I’ve never seen a requirement for a portfolio to have a piece for voice(s), so don’t worry about that unless the particular school or program requires it for some reason.
Also, I think contacting local music schools (or even a vocal teacher at such schools) could actually be a good idea. I know my fellow students do projects like this sometimes. It would likely end up being cheaper so worth a look.
Thanks for the input.
Finally found a studio (not local) which is able to add a reading session to their planned recording project. They’re going to use S’s recorded acoustic piano accompaniment, which is an added advantage, I think. Can’t wait to see it happen!