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With over 600 compositions, James Quitman Mulholland (b. 1935) has established himself as one of America's foremost contemporary composers. James Spillane, in his doctoral dissertation examining music selected by high school honor choirs, found that Mulholland was one of five most-programmed composers, along with Handel, Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Mozart.1 Another measure of his compositional success might be sales; Mulholland's A Red, Red Rose has continuously been Schott music's best-selling octavo in the country since its publication in 1979.2 Drew Collins, the Repertoire Forum Editor of the Choral Director Magazine, said, "Mulholland is one of the most prolific choral composers operating today, and many of his settings of texts are embedded in choral repertory."3 Other well-known best sellers include Think On Me, Life Has Loveliness to Sell, and Heart We Will Forget Him! More recently, If Love Should Count You Worthy and Fare Thee Well Love are best sellers in the Colla Voce catalog.4
James Mulholland's individual compositions appear on countless recordings, but there are four CDs devoted solely to his music.5 Mulholland says: "A composer is paid a great compliment to have his music performed. During my career of over sixty years, I have been so very honored by all the performances I have received."6 Mulholland's oeuvre has itself been the subject of three doctoral dissertations.7 He maintains a full schedule as a commissioned composer, as a clinician, and as an artist in residence, in addition to his continuing responsibilities as a devoted educator. In the fall of 2017, Professor Mulholland commenced his fiftyfifth year as professor of music (teaching composition, choral arranging, and music history) at Butler University in Indianapolis.
Given that Mulholland is one of the most-performed contemporary American composers, it is perhaps surprising how little scholarly attention has been devoted to his work. Dennis Schrock's Choral Repertoire, for example, does not mention Mulholland, despite including biographical information on forty-nine other twentieth-century American composers. Nick Strimple's Choral Music in the Twentieth Century devotes only part of a sentence to him, including Mulholland in a list of "prominent educational composers at century's end."8 Even the Choral Journal has only devoted two pages to the composer in the past twenty years.9 He was the Raymond W Brock Commission composer in 1996 and the driving force...