The music of Joseph Gentry Stephens has been performed throughout the United States as well as the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Spain, The Netherlands, Slovenia, Indonesia, Chile, Venezuela, Argentina, South Korea, Switzerland, Singapore, Australia, Poland, France, Belgium, and the Czech Republic.

Special Thanks to the Choral Public Domain Library

The Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL) is the largest website devoted exclusively to free choral sheet music from within the public domain. Begun in December 1998, the site has over 10,000 scores available to download.  The database is searchable by composer's name or title of the piece. You may also browse by composer. This website also has a quarterly newsletter that you may subscribe to and online forums for support and discussions.

Joseph Gentry Stephens

Joseph Gentry Stephens began his musical training at the age of 10 in the public schools of Texarkana, Arkansas studying percussion.  College degrees include a Bachelor of Arts in Vocal Performance from the University of Arkansas - Monticello and a Master of Music in Choral Conducting from the University of Northern Colorado.

Ingrid Showalter Swift

Ingrid Showalter Swift was born in Charlottesville Virginia in 1963. She was raised in Roanoke, Virginia among the Blue Ridge Mountains and wrote her first poetry at age 6. She then returned to Charlottesville to attend The University of Virginia. After moving to Boston, she studied at North Eastern University and the Museum of Fine Arts. She presently resides in Weston Massachusetts. She is a mother, a poet, a painter, an antique dealer and a shower singer. She is published in many anthologies, chap books, magazines and web sites and joyfully finished her first book of poetry “Thin as Parchment/ Red as Rubies”.
 

NOTES ABOUT THE MUSIC

Dynamic, tempo and other markings are intentionally omitted from unaccompanied works in order to allow each work to evolve in each performance.  The lack of such markings harkens back to the traditions of chant and early choral styles in which melodic, harmonic and textual devices determined the interpretation of the music.

Texts used range from the Liber Usualis, Holy Bible, The Tibetan Book of the Dead as well as various poems by Ingrid Showalter Swift and others by Stephens.

The works of Joseph Gentry Stephens are registered with BMI under the Classical Music Section.

Please report all performances directly to the composer.

STEPHENS MUSIC - PUBLISHING CHORAL MUSIC SINCE 1999