The Choral Imperative

for orders of $50 or more (within the US)

Raising the Bar book+DVD series

The first four volumes of the Raising the Bar: Multimedia Resources for Authentic World Music Performance book+dvd series include Bulgarian, Georgian & South African choral arrangements. Books include extensive background information, IPA pronunciation charts, separate word sheets with complete translations, and valuable teaching and performance tips. Each book comes with a teaching DVD with pronunciation, part and performance videos.

The Bulgarian and Georgian volumes both include full reproduceable scores, while the South African songs are meant to be learned by ear using the DVDs.

More Georgian music

Polyphonic singing has always had its place in Georgian social life. Genres include hunting songs, labor songs, ritual songs, laments, love songs, wedding songs, marching songs, and historical ballads. Our collection of three-part folk songs and orthodox chants from the Caucasus Republic of Georgia provides a broad introduction to the genre. (Watch for the addition of some unusual CDs from the Republic of Georgia, coming to the website soon.)

More South African choral music

Designed to help conductors, music educators and singers learn to teach traditional black South African choral music in the oral tradition.

South African choral music is characterized by syncopated and nuanced rhythms which challenge the limits of western notation. Accompanying dances add new rhythmic layers to the mix, with song and dance together forming a not easily-defined whole. Individual vocal parts that would look complicated on the page, however, are easily learned and memorized when taught by ear.

Our book+DVD sets will guide you and your choir through each song, voice part by voice part, so that you can learn them and then teach them in the oral tradition. The books offer specific guidance on pronunciation, vocal tone, dance movements, and background information for each song. The books also include reproduceable wordsheets with full translations and IPA, and suggestions for treble-voice as well as SATB arrangements. The teaching DVDs include pronunciation and individual parts videos with subtitles, and full performance videos.

We offer five different book+DVD teaching collections for you to choose from: Vela, Vela, The Folk Rhythm volumes 1 & 2, and our two Raising the Bar: Traditional South African Choral Music book+DVD sets.

World Music Choral Collections

 Music for MidWynter: Music for the Winter Solstice from Many Centuries & Many Cultures.
Twenty-four unusual and delightful choral arrangements, ranging from 13th-century French conductus to 20th-century compositions by Hugo Distler and Erik Nielsen and including traditional Christmas and seasonal songs from America, Bulgaria, Corsica, Georgia, Sardinia, the UK, Spain and Germany. Includes a CD. Available as a digital download, or as a pre-order for mid-May 2015 delivery. Listen to the entire CD HERE.

 The Best of Village Harmony: A 25th Anniversary Collection.
A treasury of world music choral arrangements with 97 scores.Traditional & composed polyphonic songs from the US, the Balkans, Caucasus Georgia, Ukraine, Corsica & more. Comes with a mp3 CDR disc with performances of nearly all of the songs. Published to commemorate Vermont-based Village Harmony's 25th anniversary in 2014.