• Checklist for Commissioning Choral Music
  Use this document to ask the right questions as you are planning your commission.
  
• Commissioning Timeline
  Creating a new commission can take 12-24 months. Use this sample timeline to plan each step in your commissioning process.
  
• Commissioning Music: A Basic Guide – Meet the Composer
  An excellent resource that offers fee guidelines as well as a basic description of rights and considerations.
• How to Commission a New Work – Abbie Betinis
  Composer, Abbie Betinis shares her suggestions for commissioning a new work.
  
• Tips for Commissioning – Dr. Stan Hill

Take the time to find a composer who understands your chorus and writes in a style that will be a strong fit for your organization and project. Make sure the composer you select is skilled at writing for choirs! Look at other choral commissioned they have written, listen to their recordings.

Some ensembles use contests to find new music. Pieces are submitted in partial or complete form and a prize (commission fee) is awarded to the selected composition. An advantage here is that the chorus can choose from several pieces instead of just one. You also encourage newer composers to apply.

The organizations below offer composer databases, sample sound and score samples. You can also post a request for commissioning proposals on many of these sites.

GALA-friendly composers
This page offers a list of composers that have created commissions, and are familiar with, LGBT choruses along with links to their websites, recordings and score samples.

American Composer's Forum
The ACF is committed to supporting composers and developing new markets for their music. On their website you can list your commission project and request proposals, search their database for a composer.

New Music USA
This organization seeks to find new ways advance the cause of new music and inspire an ever-growing community to listeners. They stream a catalog of new music around the clock on Counterstream Radio as well as providing commissioning grants.

New Music On-Line Library
The Online Library is a searchable database with access to digital scores, sound files and biographical information on composers.

Adapt these contracts to make sure your commission expectations are clearly spelled out between all parties.

• Commission Contract Template
  Download this document to use/edit as a template for your commission contract.
  Word Document
• Commission Contract More Contingencies
  This template is more complicated and includes several contingencies including reduced fees if deadlines are not met.
  PDF Document

The best way to fund a commission is to find an individual donor who is interested in leaving a legacy by contributing toward a new piece of music. This donor can be honored with recognition at your concert, in the program and in the PR for the concert premiere.

Some foundations or corporations may offer a dollar match for a fundraising campaign to encourage multiple gifts from your donors.

Consider collaborating with 2-3 other GALA choruses to share the cost of the commission. List your commission idea on this GALA commission discussion board.

The following organizations may provide commissioning grants to choruses or to composers:

New Music USA Supports commissioning fees as well as appearance and residency fees for composers.

The Dr. Catherine Roma Commissioning Fund
This new fund provide commissioning grants to GALA member choruses for new works by women composers.

Jerome Foundation
For not-for-profit arts organizations applying on behalf of artists for the creation, development, and production of new works by emerging artists in New York City and Minnesota.

American Composer's Forum
These grants are mostly for individual artists but may be a resource for a commissioning collaboration.

Our member choruses have commissioned thousands of new commissions in our 40-year history. Check out these links and consider performing a new work that was previously commissioned by another GALA Chorus.

We Hold These Names Sacred - GALA Commission Consortium
Artists: Mari Esabel Valverde & Dane Figueroa Edidi
Length = 4 minutes
SATB, SSAA andTTBB voicings available
Text by Dane Figueroa Edidi
Music by Mari Esabel Valverde

The first in a series of choral pieces addressing the epidemic of violence, especially murders, of transgender women and in particular trans women of color (TWOC). We hope that this work inspires conversations aimed at cultivating intentional solidarity with TWOC with a work created by two trans women of color. According to our artistic collaborators: “It’s not just one work. It’s a movement. It’s not just about honoring lives. It’s about saving lives.”

Conversation surrounding the experiences of trans woman of color is necessary and can be extremely powerful in education and activism, including:

• Encouraging choirs to partner with local organizations, schools, communities of faith, etc. to rehearse, educate, dialogue and perform this commission together. GALA can help facilitate connections between high-school/collegiate choirs and GALA LGBTQ Choruses,
• E-activism involving the distribution of your premiere video/audio recording,
• Educational materials for participating choruses and collaborators.

To order contact Mari Esabel Valverde. 

***

Lifting As We Climb - Dr. Catherine Roma commission
Composed by Joan Szymko
SSAA, piano, alto sax, percussion narrators and speakers
Length: 25 min

The 2020 Dr. Catherine Roma Commission was composed by Joan Szymko in honor of the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the U.S. Lifting As We Climb, is composed in three movements which open with the current climate of voting rights today, then look back in celebration of the struggles women endured in order to win the right to vote, and finally looking ahead and asking how we can engage and activate real change for all women of all colors in this unjust and soiled world.

An accompanying middle-school curriculum is provided free of charge and includes historical information about the suffragette movement as well as musical scores to allow students to learn the actual music of the commission. Scores may be ordered directly from Joan Szymko.

***

Bayard Rustin: The Man Behind the Dream
This 55-min SATB musical (spoken word and music) celebrates the life of gay African-American civil rights activist, Bayard Rustin, who was a mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Music by Steve Milloy and libretto by Vanessa German. The commission includes a curriculum for use in partnership with local schools. Recording. Contact Steve Milloy.

***

Quiet No More
An 8-movement commission celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising. Composed for SSAA, SATB and TTBB choirs. The commission also includes a school curriculum. Contact Charlie Beale.

MUSE: Cincinnati’s Women’s Choir Commissions
MUSE has commissioned and arranged over 100 choral works for women’s chorus – many of them by women composers.

A Sample of GALA Commissions - ACDA Workshop
Excel - This compilation of commissions by GALA choruses was compiled by conductor Joe Buches for an ACDA workshop.

New York City Gay Men’s Chorus Commissions
Word Document