Folk Choral Sheet Music

Teachers consistently return to James Erb's Shenandoah: SSAATTBB a cappella Choral Octavo for its versatility and vocal satisfaction. Greg Gilpin's Tongo and Siyahamba by Victor C. Johnson are workhorses in school choirs, offering engaging folk material that builds ensemble skills. Andy Beck's The Water Is Wide provides accessible two-part arrangement that sounds mature while remaining teachable.

Ruth Morris Gray has contributed two new titles this year: A la Lata in SATB voicing and Banaha as a two-part arrangement. Douglas E. Wagner's Shalom / Zum Gali and Earlene Rentz's The Shepherd and the Cat also join the collection recently, expanding options for mixed and two-part voicings.

Jay Althouse brings nearly 800 choral works to print and offers 91 titles in this collection alone. His Bright Morning Stars demonstrates his skill at writing accessible, musically satisfying a cappella pieces that work across ability levels. Althouse served as a rights administrator for a major educational publisher and brings both compositional depth and publishing expertise to his arrangements.

Greg Gilpin is an ASCAP award-winning composer and conductor whose international reputation spans performances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Sydney Opera House. His Tongo stands as one of the collection's most widely adopted titles, and his 73 contributions here reflect his gift for crafting folk arrangements that engage both singers and audiences.

Ruth Morris Gray directs choirs at Rosemead High School in California and brings classroom experience to her work as a composer with degrees in piano performance and music composition. Her output of over 100 published arrangements appears throughout this collection, including Bwana Awabariki, which has become a favorite in middle and high school programs.

Alice Parker studied at Smith College and Juilliard, where she began her long collaboration with Robert Shaw on folk and spiritual settings. Though she passed away, her legacy of 56 arrangements in this collection continues to serve choirs; her Parker/Shaw arrangements of American folksongs form enduring repertoire still performed worldwide.