With You: SoundTrax Digital Audio Download

Schwartz's pop sensibility shines through here without sacrificing choral texture or emotional authenticity. The piece sits comfortably for mixed voices while maintaining a contemporary groove that engages student singers immediately. This is the kind of selection that reminds young singers why they joined choir in the first place.

The piece carries the intimacy of a Broadway moment, warm and personal rather than grand or bombastic. There's a sincerity to it that invites connection, with the kind of straightforward melody and harmonic language that feels immediately familiar even on first hearing.

This piece works for mixed choirs at the intermediate level and above who want contemporary repertoire with theatrical warmth. It's equally at home in a show choir concert or a standard choral program looking to reach modern audiences.

• Balance the rhythmic clarity against the emotional pull of the melody. Schwartz writes lyrics that land best when sung with forward motion, not dragged.
• Use the recorded accompaniment as a learning tool first, then consider stepping back from it for performance to let your choir's voices carry the piece.
• Attend to the text. Schwartz's songwriting lives in the clarity of vowels and the shape of phrases, so mark consonants lightly and sustain your tone on the meaningful words.

Program this alongside lighter pop-inspired selections in a spring concert, or use it to open a show choir set where you want to establish an emotional tone early. It's also effective as a festival selection where you want to showcase contemporary choral writing with pop sensibility.

• Singing contemporary pop-inflected melodies with clear diction
• Balancing rhythmic precision with lyrical phrasing
• Blending in mixed-voice textures with modern harmonic language
• Interpreting text-driven songwriting from theatrical sources