Choraegus was a choral music company before our first handbell piece became part of our catalog. We have about 100 scores for SATB choir, SSA women’s ensemble, and TTBB men’s ensemble.
The great majority of our vocal compositions were written for Living Water, the choir I directed from 1987-2010. Those songs are the Living Water Composition Project. After two years leading LW, I found that it was a challenge to get music that would 1) cater to the members’ (mostly senior highers) choral preferences and 2) provide the kind of message/text depth that I liked. So when I had foot surgery in December 1989, I got to work on the first twelve pieces. Over the next twelve or thirteen years, that set of songs grew to eighty-five, and LW grew to love them as their own special repertoire.
The SSA pieces were written for the Valley Church ladies’ trio. Bobbie, Chris, and Marion could sing just about anything, and the three pieces here were well within their techical compass.
The Valley men’s quartet sang the TTBB pieces. The first in this group was Power in the Blood, and Doumer, Les, Norm and I were privileged to sing it at Easter service in 1989. The others came along over the next six or eight years.
It’s my privilege to share this bit of personal history with you, and I hope you’ll give some of these a whirl. All of them have accompaniment MP3s available, so you can sing them even if you’re missing an accompanist.
