| mattwesselmusic.com |
| matt's journal october 24, 2007 |
| In October of 2002, I was excitedly sharing a couple of new songs of mine with friends and family. "Be With Me" and "Take, Lord". I wrote the first one in the summer of '02. I was interning with the Milwaukee Brewers that summer and living in Milwaukee. I had a lot of free time and spent most of it writing music at the piano in Marquette University's Chapel of the Holy Family. Shortly after my senior year started, I wrote "Take, Lord", inspired by the text I had heard for three years at MU - the "Sucipe" by St. Ignatius of Loyola. Today, five years later, I'm happy to announce that those two pieces are being put on the track to publication by one of the leading publishing companies in the world - GIA Publications, Inc. I'M SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I received the informal word via e-mail last Thursday and then got an official letter in the mail on Saturday. What they've sent me is a "letter of intent". Basically, it says their way of securing the songs as "their own", while at the same time letting me know that they may not get to it for a while - perhaps even a year. GIA deals with so many songs that it's hard for them to keep up with real time. While they made the decision to publish my stuff, they're also willing to admit (thankfully, I might add) that it's going to take a while to get it out to the public. It still needs to go through the editorial process and, understandably, there are other songs that they are currently working on that need to be finished first. But the fact still remains -- at some point in the (hopefully) near future, GIA will be putting out two octavos with my name on it! For those that know me personally or have been reading these journals for the past few years, you know that this has been a life goal of mine since I started writing liturgical music in high school. I wanted to have a piece of music out by the time I was 25, so I'm just a year late. : ) And I always envisioned it being with GIA. I grew up with their hymnals and their composers. Over the past few years, I've had the pleasure of meeting and working with several of their musicians, composer and staff members. They're a very successful company and do a great job of marketing the music of their writers. Whever I have news to share, I will do so. Again, it's going to take some time. But the key is this -- IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN!!! Thanks to everyone for their support over the years. The single largest driving factor behind my compositions is the feedback I get from other people. When I see that someone likes a song of mine, it inspired and motivates me to write another one. Thanks to everyone who has ever sung a song of mine or bought a CD of mine. And, of course, thanks to my mom and dad for instilling within me a desire to write liturgical music. You know what the coolest part of all of this is? The thing that really, really, really drove me to try and achieve this goal? It's the thought that one day, when I'm 40, I might go to a church in Portland, Oregon and hear one of my songs being played. THAT will be cool. That's probably a long ways away (as is my 40th birthday), but it's something that I look forward to experiencing. Before I leave, I also want to thank the crowd that came out to St. Anne's in Pleasant Prairie this Sunday to help us raise $1,000 for the American Cancer Society. We had a fun show and look forward to going back to St. Anne's next year. One more show in 2007: We're playing our annual liturgical show to raise money for Habitat for Humanity in Milwaukee on November 4. Check out the details here. |