
It has been a long time coming, but the complete score to Brooklyn Babylon — all 277 pages — is now available for you to view or download from the Sheet Music section of this website. As with all of my published scores, I’m offering it without charge.
For ensembles interested in performing the work, parts for the individual chapters will be available for purchase soon. (Parts for Chapter 1, “The Neighborhood,” are already available.)
If, after looking at the score, you would like to ask me any questions about it, please go ahead and leave a comment below this post and I’ll do my best to respond.
My own working score for the original performances of Brooklyn Babylon was, I’m not ashamed to admit, full of collisions and poor spacing and typos and all manner of travesties that would never be remotely acceptable in professionally published music. When I’m gearing up to perform new work with Secret Society, my first priority is always decent parts for the musicians: they need to be clear, legible, attractive, and sensibly laid out with viable page turns. Since I am the conductor, I don’t care if my own score is a total mess, because I am the only one who has to look at it. I usually have other priorities — like, say, rehearsing the band. Proofing, editing, and consolidating the score, then cleaning it up for publication is a big job — in the case of this piece, a dauntingly massive undertaking, actually — which is why it hasn’t been available before now.
I’m very happy to be able offer the score to Brooklyn Babylon for free, as I always appreciate it when other composers make their scores accessible. That said, if having this score helps you out and you’d like to show your appreciation, you can always make a tax-deductible contribution to Secret Society here.