Copyright Information

We occasionally run across the well-meaning question of "I can't find this anthem anywhere. Can I just make copies of it?" We completely understand the plight of choir directors who have a well-loved piece that they can't find anymore for their growing choir. But, unfortunately we can't "just make copies of it".

The Music Publisher's Association has a great resource page about the Church Musician and Copyright Law: http://www.mpa.org/copyright_resource_center/church_musician.

Churches can be liable for any copying done by their musicians. Music publishers can and will bring a lawsuit against any person or organization who copies their music without permission.

If there's not enough time to get permission or the copyright holder can't be located, then pick another piece (one you can get permission for or one that is in the public domain). Better to be safe than sorry!

We at the MMF offer a copy license on some of our anthems not available through commercial publishers. For a fee of $10, we provide a church/choir director/musician with one clean copy of the anthem (on regular 8.5" x 11" paper) and permission for that person to make as many copies as needed for their group. Each anthem we send out in this manner will include the phrase "Moravian Music Foundation anthem copies licensed to XYZ* on Date. Any other copying is prohibited."

*XYZ is the name of the church or group for whom the license was purchased.

If your choir grows or some copies of one of these anthems goes missing, then you don't have to re-ask for permission to make additional copies.

Please, familiarize yourself and your musician friends with copyright law. Saving money by making a photocopy isn't worth being sued.

What does everybody do?

You see our names on the MMF's letterhead and on the "Contact Us" page of the website. You might even see Albert singing with Unitas Chorale or see Nola presenting a workshop on hymn-writing. But what does the staff of the MMF do on a day-to-day basis? We are all involved with many different on-going projects and daily tasks every day. Here's a sampling of what we do most of the time:

Nola (Director):

• Edits and oversees other editors for new editions of music from MMF's collections
• Gives lectures on Moravian music topics
• Leads church band workshops and hymn-writing workshops
• Sits in on recording and editing sessions for new CDs
• Travels to spread the word about Moravian music and the MMF
• Advises researchers with their own projects and conducts her own research for the MMF
• Writes extensive liner notes for recordings
• Prioritizes which manuscripts should be edited for modern performance
• Acts as the Music Director for the Moravian Music Festivals

Albert (Assistant Director):

• Advises researchers and conducts research from the Bethlehem office
• Acts as liaison to the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem, Moravian Theological Seminary, the European Continental Province, and the South Africa Province
• Presents lectures, workshops and leads Singstunden in the Northern Province
• Serves as Acting Director while Nola is away
• Coordinates concerts in the Lehigh Valley area
• Represents the MMF at public and church-related events in the Northern Province
• Prioritizes which pieces from the Bethlehem office collections are in need of conservation
• Is the contact for MMF’s friends and trustees in the Bethlehem area

Bart (Administrator and Development Director):

• Researches and writes grant proposals
• Acts as the staff liaison to the MMF’s development committee and to the Southern Province
• Treasurer's office
• Oversees the administrative tasks of the MMF
• Prepares the MMF board-approved budget
• Acts as a liaison to the local community of fund raising professionals
• Accompanies board members to meet potential new donors and friends
• Acts as a liaison to several Winston-Salem area community bands and to Carolina Music Ways

Beth (Executive Assistant):

• Attends to daily office duties
• Handles donations and donor records
• Updates the website and weblog
• Edits the printed newsletter and publishes the e-newsletter
• Designs advertisements, posters, postcards, brochures, and other printed marketing materials
• Assists researchers, trustees, volunteers, and the rest of the staff
• Handles sales and library orders

All of our work (even the day to day "administriva" tasks) serves to perserve, share, and celebrate the musical culture of Moravians.

Your favorite classical music stations

The Moravian Music Foundation's headquarters is in Winston-Salem, NC with a satellite office in Bethlehem, PA. But Moravians, and non-Moravians who like to listen to our music, are scattered across the whole United States.

We need your help to identify local Public Radio/classical music stations in your area. We've got contact information for the stations in NC, but we need info (or at least the call signs) for stations in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, and everywhere in between. You can email your favorite classical station call signs and city/state to bwall@mcsp.org or just post a comment to this blog entry.

Back in 2003, the MMF received a flurry of interest from across the country after NPR aired an interview with Miles Hoffman who spoke about Moravian music. The interview featured music from Lost Music of Early America, Parthien 10-14, and Storm in the Land. We'd like to see that flurry of interest again!

With your help in identifying classical stations, we can get Antes, Gregor, Peter, and Michael sandwiched between Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. With your help, we can introduce a whole new audience to the music of the Moravians.

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Links of interest:

Trombone Choir History
http://www.esm.rochester.edu/trombone/ChoirHistory.htm

NPR interview about Trombone Choirs
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1321215

Music for All Seasons (CD) at Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Music-All-Seasons/dp/B000003J2Z

Moravian Brass Band Union of South Africa
http://www.moravianbrass.co.za/index.php

Salem Band (NC)
http://www.salemband.org/

For your weekend viewing pleasure...

Here are some websites and articles that you might find interesting to peruse at your leisure:

Bethlehem Digital History Project's page about music
http://bdhp.moravian.edu/music/music.html

The Orlando Sentinel's article about the Bach Festival Society's February 25 concert
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/music/orl-moravians2407feb24

Extensive liner notes for "The Water Journey" CD which includes a great introduction to Moravian music
http://www.newworldrecords.org/linernotes/80490.pdf

The Winston-Salem Business Journal's article about the MMF's endowment campaign
http://triad.bizjournals.com/triad/stories/2006/03/27/newscolumn1.html

Ken Keuffel's article about the "Moravian Music: 1410-2006" concert given in September 2006
http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ%2FMGArticle%2FWSJ_RelishArticle

Moravian Music Resource Manual
http://www.mcsp.org/resources/wrm/res_wrm_preface.htm

Article about the Inuits of Labrador and their history with 18th and 19th century European music
http://www.mun.ca/2006report/research/gordon.php

Book reviews of "Moravian Music: An Introduction" and "Opening a Can of Worms" (scroll down a ways)
http://www.american-music.org/publications/bullarchive/reviw233.htm

Extensive liner notes from "Antes Trios and Peter Quintets" CD
http://dram.nyu.edu/dram/note.cgi?id=2586

Home page for the Salem Moravian Brass Bands of Port Elizabeth, South Africa
http://www.salembands.za.cx/index.html

Article by the Moravian Archives in Winston-Salem, NC about the 1615 Czech-language hymnal
http://www.moravianarchives.org/articles/hymnal.html

Two-Part Invention Strikes Again!

Here's a nice review of a recent concert given by Two-Part Invention (Nora Suggs, Flute and John Arnold, Guitar) in Berryville, Virginia.

http://www.timescommunity.com/site/tab3.cfm?newsid=17791753&BRD=2553&PAG=461&dept_id=506078&rfi=6

In 2006, Nora and John gave three concerts entitled "Morning Star - Music in Moravian America" in conjunction with the Moravian Music Foundation's 50th Anniversary. They performed arrangements of music from the MMF collections, including music by Till, van der Hagen, Stabinger, Antes, Wendling, and Hagen.

Welcome!

Welcome to the weblog spot for the Moravian Music Foundation.

This blog will include posts about current MMF projects, new recordings and publications, little known facts about Moravian music, and other interesting tidbits of information about the musical life of American Moravians from the mid-18th century to today's Moravians.

Please feel free to post comments to any of our posts. What would you like to see us do? What do you feel we need to do differently? What can we improve on? Your comments don't have to be limited to the blog topic for the day.

For a crash course in Moravian music (also known as Moravian Music 101), check out the "Moravian music" article at Wikipedia.

On to the heart of this blog...(tooting our own horn!)

The Moravian Music Foundation is proud to announce a joyful partnership with the Bach Festival Society of Winter Park, Florida to produce a new recording of Moravian choral music and solo arias!

On February 25, 2007, the Winter Park Bach Festival featured an evening of Moravian choral and solo music, accompanied by orchestra. Recording sessions took place during the following week. Dr. John V. Sinclair, well-known to Moravian-music lovers as the continuing conductor of the Moravian Music Festivals, directed the choir and orchestra. The CD is projected for release in early summer.

In planning for the CD, Dr. Sinclair and Dr. Nola R. Knouse, director of the Moravian Music Foundation, nickednamed it the "Moravian Greatest Hits" project. Over the past four years, they discussed which of the many vocal pieces should be recorded. Some of the music included on the recording just received their first modern performance within the past 10 years. These include:

• Freydt, I Am the Shepherd (solo; first performed at the 1999 Moravian Music Festival)
• Herbst, None Among Us (first performed at the 1999 Moravian Music Festival)
• Jaeschke, The Lord Be Mindful of You (first performed at the 2006 Moravian Music Festival)
• Latrobe, By Your Meritorious Death (first performed at the 2003 Moravian Music Festival)
• Löwe, O Most Gracious, Welcome Child (first performed at the 1996 Moravian Music Festival)
• Peter, Let Everyone Have the Same Mind (duet;first performed at the 1999 Moravian Music Festival)

Many of the already-familiar works on the recording have been newly edited for this concert and CD. While this work might seem puzzling, it was necessary because of the evolution of music editorial practices over the past 60 years. These include the following "revamped oldies":

• Antes, Go, Congregation, Go with Surely He Hath Borne Our Griefs
• Antes, Loveliest Immanuel
• Bechler, O the Blessedness Is Great
• Geisler, The Fruit of the Spirit
• Gregor, Glory to God in the Highest
• Gregor, In Slumber
• Leinbach, Hosanna
• Michael, My Soul Knows Purest Pleasure (also known as I Love to Dwell in Spirit)
• Peter, It Is a Precious Thing
• Peter, Sing, O Ye Heavens
  
• S. Peter, Behold a Sight
• Schultz, Thou Child Divine
• Sorensen, Bethany
• Wolf, Glory to Him

We know someone is reading this and saying, "But my favorite 'hit' isn't there!" We know. We couldn't include everything. But this leaves us plenty of music for a second "Moravian Hits" CD.

For this concert and recording, the Bach Festival Society was augmented by a small group of Moravian singers from around the country and by students from Rollins College, where John Sinclair is also the choral conductor. The Rollins College students also sang several works alone.

The CD will be offered in our online catalog as soon as it becomes available. The regular price will be $16 plus shipping and applicable sales tax. However, we are taking pre-orders until April 1 at a discounted price of $14 per CD, which includes shipping and taxes. Click HERE to download and print a pre-release order form.

In closing for this, our first blog post, we want to thank you for your interest in Moravian music. Please come back soon, and visit often!