Choral Public Domain Library

Hi, I'm a new user and I hope I'm in the right forum. I sing with an eight piece ladies four part a cappella group. We come from the barbershop tradition but want to improve by entering the four local music festivals in 2013. In 2012 we plan to visit, listen and learn. We do sing some SSAA and adapted SATB but our repertoire is entirely contemporary and we would like to add at least two classical pieces for the festivals. I know how to choose music for a barbershop competition but I have no clue where to start in choosing choral classical music - for example, whether there are similar rules for what is competitionable as in barbershop, and whether some pieces are so overdone that they set the judges groaning. The only guidance I have is that one category we'd enter needs 'five minutes' of music and the other 'two contrasting songs'. Our barbershop level is intermediate to advanced. Any guidance anyone can offer as to suitable music would be gratefully received.

To check CPDL's collection of music by specific era, voicing and instrumentation (select a cappella if you want no instruments), check here:
http://www3.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Cho ... ory_Search

If you like Baroque music, I recommend checking out music written for the girls' choir of the Ospedali, by Porpora and Vivaldi (others wrote for the Ospedali too):
http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Nicola_Porpora
http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Antonio_Vivaldi

(If CPDL doesn't have an edition of the specific scores, there is a link to a reputable for-sale sheet music site that CPDL is affiliated with; they also often have recordings of the works, or you can try seeing if YouTube does.)

Thank you very much for the reply - I shall research the links you suggest. Sorry for delay in responding, quite a chaotic Christmas here chez Eclipsesinger.