Choral Public Domain Library

Hi,

I've heard a lot about this site and I'm wondering if it can meet my needs now. Can I search by voice type? Can I search on recommendations from other people? I'd love to put together a set of pieces for performance that are modern, light and fun. Am I in the wrong place? I'd welcome someone's first guiding suggestions as to how to get the best out of this site.

With respect

Paul

Hi Paul,

Welcome to the CPDL Bulletin Board. We've recently re-activated this board after a period of unavailability due to technical problems, so users are not as active as they were before the problems, anyway things are moving again.

CPDL is searchable through several search critetia, including voicing. Please check http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Help ... a_score%3F for details.

Generally speaking, all the CPDL help system (http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Help:Contents) provides very useful information about CPDL to newcomers.

I'd love to put together a set of pieces for performance that are modern, light and fun.

Well, "modern" within CPDL may be a problem: as CPDL scores must be "public domain", they are usually related to works not composed recently. Exception: some contemporary composers publish their scores on CPDL as a form of promotion of their activity.

For example, some "modern, light and fun" works have been written by Zoltan Kodaly, but they are not available at CPDL as Kodaly's works are still copyrighted.

Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy this board, and other users will probably provide some suggestion to you, much better than I can do.

Max

Hi, and welcome! Some links you might find useful:

Composers categorized as Modern:
http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Cate ... _composers

Composers by birth year:
http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Chor ... 50s_births

Not all composers listed in these categories will have works on CPDL. For example, Chilcott has no scores, but Huub de Lange and Lawrence Sisk do.

One more thing I wanted to mention. CPDL does not have a way to track recommendations linked to pieces that can be searched on. In fact, there's little recommendation going on, though occasionally someone will mention something on a Talk page or one of the user forums or the BBS. However, here's information about other resources you might find of interest.

If you're not already familiar with the Choralist mailing list, it is a very active mailing list where people ask for recommendations for repertoire (not necessarily all freely available, but you can indicate your preferences in any request and people will try to make suggestions):
http://choralnet.org/lists/

Someone recently posted a link to a web site that is just starting out which focuses on choral ratings nad recommendations:
http://www.clemnotes.com

And, as a random suggestion for a fun modern choral piece that is not free, I really like The Campers at Kitty Hawk (about the Wright Brothers' first flight) at MichaelDellaira.com (though I think it should be performed at a slightly slower pace than what the recording on his site features). Rhythmically a bit challenging to sight-sing in places, but something a junior high school or high school can master with some rehearsal.