UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The School of Music’s Composition program has partnered with J.W. Pepper, a worldwide distributor that has been in business since the 1870s, to release original compositions written by Penn State students, faculty and alumni.
The Penn State Composition program is the first university composition program to launch a partnership with J.W. Pepper, which aims to promote and sell significant pieces created by budding and seasoned composers from the School of Music.
Currently, nine Penn Staters have their compositions available through J.W. Pepper’s My Score platform, an online repository of works that allows the composers to offer their music to a worldwide network while retaining full ownership of the copyrights.
Baljinder Sekhon, associate professor and head of the Composition program, is one of the Penn Staters to have sheet music available on the My Score platform. Sekhon said that publishing and distributing sheet music is a professional goal for many young composers and this partnership will help to make that goal a reality more quickly than in the past.
“There have already been cases of our composers finding out that someone purchased sheet music from My Score and performed works,” Sekhon said. “Those performers otherwise wouldn't have been aware of these compositions.”
Prior to the partnership, composers would launch their own publishing companies, register that company with a performing rights organization and then sell their sheet music through their own websites and distributors they selected, Sekhon explained. This partnership doesn't replace that practice, Sekhon said, but it does offer a bigger and more recognizable platform for reaching potential performers.
Talks between the School of Music and J.W. Pepper began just more than a year ago and as the two parties worked through the details, Sekhon said it was clear that the partnership was a fit not only because of the high-profile nature of the J.W. Pepper name but because the My Score platform aligned with composition pedagogy at Penn State.
“We are thrilled about this partnership,” Sekhon said. “If new performers are discovering works by Penn State composers through J.W. Pepper, purchasing the sheet music and performing those works, then this is highly successful.”
Joining Sekhon as a Penn State composer with works available through the My Score platform are current students and recent graduates Violet Burney, Han Hitchen, Tucker Johnson, Gabriel Newvine, Nalah Aiden Palmer, Connor Simpson, Micah Mooney and Leah Mullen.
For more on the partnership and to browse Penn State compositions, visit the J.W. Pepper/Penn State website.