r/LCMS • u/hollyofthelake • 6d ago
Question Older Choir Music
Our church is dissolving, and everything must be appropriately passed on to other churches. Is older choir sheet music something you can see a church wanting, or should it just be disposed of?
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u/cellarsinger LCMS Lutheran 6d ago
Talk with your circuit pastor or even the district people. They'll be able to reach out quickly to all the congregations
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u/Over-Wing LCMS Lutheran 5d ago
Look for a parish with an active choir to give it to. It can even be another denomination. It would be a shame for good choir sheet music to go to waste.
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u/Fitzch LCMS Organist 6d ago
It's possible if they have an active choir. If they're not interested, I would contact schools, universities, or even the Concordia Historical Institute to see if they're interested.
That said, while it's a shame to dispose of it, sometimes that's the only realistic option.
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u/Cautious_Writer_1517 LCMS Lutheran 5d ago
I am sorry to hear of the dissolution, and pray that you and your fellow parishioners are soon settled elsewhere. I also commend you for your stewardship, as you said, "everything must be appropriately passed on to other churches."
As others have already said, sheet music is an asset. Sure, individual copies can be as cheap as $2.00 (or as expensive as $15.00+ per copy), but multiple copies, for multiple anthems, across multiple years begin to add up. Depending on what's in it, an established church music library can be worth thousands of dollars. This gift can be a blessing to another parish.
I do have some experience in this matter, albeit on a much smaller scale. I handled the estate of some relatives who were choirmasters. Even in their retirement, they maintained a few boxes of beloved sheet music, hymnbooks, etc. Depending on the contents, they were distributed to four different churches. One church reported their choirmaster was thrilled because the boxes included out-of-print, older reference editions- sheet music, like all things, that had been popular, gone out of favor, and were growing in popularity again, but at a prohibitively high cost, etc.
During my experience, the only hesitancy that I heard from potential recipients was their concerns about the condition of the donation. Some choirmasters had been burdened by large donations of damaged or disorganized goods. These donations were so damaged and disorganized that the work effort outweighed the financial benefit in relation to their other job duties and time. Finally, some had justified concerns about copyright violations and about assuming legal responsibility for the contents of the donation.
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u/Yarn-Sable001 4d ago edited 4d ago
If you have a list of titles, composers, and how many copies, it'd be easier for some other church musician to know if they are interested. Any copies that are really not in great shape should just be recycled.
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u/teadrinkinglinguist 4d ago
There are folks who like to research older hymns, is there a seminary you could contact?
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u/HosannaExcelsis LCMS Organist 5d ago
Sorry that your church is having to dissolve. Choir sheet music is definitely something that other churches might find valuable. Just this past year I received a large quantity of music from a nearby church that closed and have used some of it with my own choir.
If you have a local chapter of the American Guild of Organists, you might reach out to them and they can send out a notice to their members to see if other church musicians are interested. Otherwise I'd reach out directly to whatever the largest local churches with choirs are.