Mr. Carter Datz has been involved with playing, arranging, and conducting music throughout his life.

Recently, he was selected to have one of his composed pieces published by Editors’ Choice on the J.W. Pepper Blog. 

“Each year, we’re proud to bring you the very best new music for every ensemble. Our team listens to hundreds of selections from a wide range of publishers in order to identify the highest quality titles for musicians of all ages,” Editors’ Choice said.

Datz’s piece was called “Love Takes Work,” which was a collaborative effort with his 2021-22 Select Treble Choir members. They settled on a song about body positivity and how to redirect negative thoughts.  

Mr. Datz mentioned he is not the best at coming up with words, but he is good at creating music. With different words, phrases, and poems recommended to him by his students and combining it with different musical notes; he can create a song. Together, they created a piece about body positivity and teach people how to love themselves for who they are.

To them, the message of the song out of everything else that went into it, was the biggest goal they were trying to accomplish. When coming up with different ideas for music, it can be a way to help express different things from all aspects of life.

“It was a mixture of personal experiences and just some people coming up with idea,” junior Olivia Crone said. 

After revising for about a month and a half to make it sound how they wanted it to, it was officially completed in the spring of 2022. 

For what they knew, they were finished with their song, ready to post, and be done with it. What they didn’t know was this was just the beginning of a great musical adventure.

After Mr. Datz posted their song on a group chat with other choir members all around to listen to their song, he was not expecting the unexpected to happen. After posting their song, Roger Emerson found out about it, listened to it, and loved it.

For a back story, Roger Emerson is a legend in the choral world and has worked with various companies, like Disney studios by helping them compose their music with different movies/TV shows.

After hearing their song, Emerson reached out to Mr. Datz and wanted to help him publish it so that everyone could hear their song.

“It was unreal, and still feels unreal,” Mr. Datz said.

After some time, their song finally got published by one of the biggest publishing companies in the world. 

“This is a 10-year dream come true,” Datz said.