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Our Story

Festival Music Press is a Ecom Music Shop, offering sight-reading examples used from past state choral festivals to help teachers

and students prepare for festival sight-reading.

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Background (About the composer):   My name is Norman L. Crarey,  I am a retired music educator.  I taught in public and private schools for 39 years.   I have had the privilege to teach music at every level K-12 and College.   I have a BS degree in Music Theory and Composition and a MM degree in Choral Conducting.  I currently still hold the NBPTS Certification - EAYA Music.

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I have been composing choral festival sight-reading exercises for 24 years.

Bad days:  As a public choral teacher, I enjoyed preparing my students to sing at the State Choral Festivals.  At Festival, the performance of graded music for adjudicators was the high point.  However, the sight-reading component was frequently disappointing.  I knew it could be better.    So instead of complaining, I got involved.

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Better times:  On the State Music Board, I worked to improve the Festival sight-reading component.  After in-depth analysis of popular vocal sight-reading method books, our Board members-consisting of a group of choral music educators from all levels (elementary, middle, high school and college), created a set of rubrics to compose musical examples for Middle and High School choral students to sing at Festivals.  The rhythmic and melodic examples I compose cover all levels of choral festival performance with careful attention to the range of singers at developmental stages.  

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At Festival Music Press, choral teachers can purchase reproducible sight-reading examples used in past State Choral Festivals to prepare their students for sight-reading at Festival.  There are 23 years of past examples that teachers can use to run 'mock' festival sight-reading drills in the classroom...and more are on the way!

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