Raindrop New Music

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Raindrop New Music

Composer collective/sheet music store featuring vocal music & beyond by gender diverse PNW composers

Raindrop New Music was founded by (and is currently run by) collaborators Drew Swatosh, Lisa Neher, and Carolyn Quick.

04/27/2026

🎂Happy Birthday to our wonderful co-founder Drew Swatosh, Composer & Vocalist (they/them)!

We so appreciate your vision for Raindrop New Music and how you brought this group of gender-diverse composers together to uplift and amplify one another's music. We love how joyfully you support your friends and colleagues endeavors and how openly you share your full self, with integrity, vulnerability, and warmth, through your compositions and singing!

We hope you have a great birthday and we are so excited to enjoy your upcoming musical creations!

Photo credit: Antonia Rose Photo

04/06/2026

Happy Birthday to our lovely co-founder Carolyn Gale-Quick (sher/her)! 🥳

We - (Drew, Jesse, & Lisa) love seeing all of the amazing adventures you got to have last year from composing a chamber opera to getting married. It is a joy to watch your career as a composer continue to grow as you become known for your thought provoking and engaging choral works and continually step into your genius zone. The feistiness and vibrancy you bring to building Raindrop New Music is deeply felt and appreciated. We love you and hope you have a fabulous day, and look forward to your future artistic endeavors as we embark on this next chapter of Raindrop New Music!

📸: Antonia Rose Photo

03/03/2026

Come connect with us at ACDA Northwestern Region Conference this week!

Raindrop New Music Co Founders Carolyn Gale-Quick and Drew Swatosh, Composer & Vocalist will be at the conference and are featured on several events on Friday, March 6!

10:00 am - Carolyn performs with In Medio in the Pantages Theatre

1:45 pm - Meet Drew & Carolyn at the Meet the Composer Session outside the Pantages Theatre, where you can peruse sample scores and get to know our whole Raindrop New Music Choral Catalog!

4:30 pm: Reading Session 1 at the Downtown Marriot, including Carolyn's piece "O Fire"

We're so excited to see you! Come say hello!

02/25/2026

Raindrop New Music is delighted to introduce the newest member of our collective, Jesse Preis!

Jesse Preis is a Portland-based composer, tenor, pianist, and teacher originally from Emblem, Wyoming, whose compositions have been described as “hypnotic music” (Lorin Wilkerson, Oregon ArtsWatch). They hold an MMus in Vocal Performance from West Virginia University and both a BMus in Piano Performance & Pedagogy and a BArts in Vocal Performance from the University of Montana.

A composer for many different types of ensembles, Jesse’s compositions have been performed and/or recorded by Renegade Opera, Portland Symphonic Choir, the Northwest Civic Orchestra of Powell, WY, and pianist Nikos Syropoulos. While composing, Jesse aims to write music that combines tradition and melody with innovation and storytelling.

As a performer, they have collaborated with Renegade Opera as a pianist on works such as La clemenza di Tito (2022) and She Loves You Back (2023), they have performed with the Lutheran Chorale Association, the Portland Symphonic Girl Choir, the Portland Symphonic Choir, and the Portland Choir and Orchestra, as well as having collaborated with other church and community choirs in Oregon, West Virginia, and Montana. As a tenor, Jesse has appeared as Eisenstein in Orlofsky’s Party (Renegade Opera), Perry in Orfeo in Underland (Renegade Opera), Parpignol in La boheme Warhola (Pittsburgh Festival Opera), the First Priest and Armored Guard in The Magic Flute (WVU), and roles in numerous opera scenes productions.

Browse Jesse's catalog and get to know their work on our website, raindropnewmusic.com!

12/17/2025

❄️Happy Holidays to you and yours from Raindrop New Music!

As the darkest night of the year approaches, we hope you all are keeping warm (or for Portland folks, keeping dry during this very rainy season).

If you do wish to venture out in search of festive tunes, be sure to check out In Medio's At the Holidays concert on December 19th and 20th - featuring the world premiere of co-founder Carolyn Gale-Quick 's arrangement of God Rest You Merry, Gentleman. Also on the program, local Portland Composer Naomi LaViolette’s Winter Solstice.

https://inmediochoir.org/ath25

11/19/2025

Raindrop New Music Co-Founders Drew Swatosh, Composer & Vocalist & Lisa Neher, Mezzo-Soprano & Composer both have pieces of music on concerts by Opera Praktikos this Thursday & Friday in NYC!

Wrapping up four-years of operations, OPrak announce Spoon Theory Song Cycle launching NYC's first disability-affirmative opera company into Fifth Fiscal Year with strength.

Spoon Cycle is an hour-long program that interweaves spoken-word from Christine Miserandino’s 2020 essay–The Spoon Theory–with original art songs from living composers/librettists. These musical works highlight the innate emotionality of Miserandino’s powerfully written work that became a watershed moment in Disability culture, transforming the experience of living with chronic illness into an act of creative consciousness.

The art songs presented in Spoon Cycle are a curated selection of works by composers & librettists: Lisa Neher; Jude Duane; Drew Swatosh; Nina Shih; Spencer Edgers; Elizabeth Howell; Jaquay Smith; and Ethan Resnik. They will be performed by a piano trio lead by Kyle Glasgow (Music Director/clarinet), Mercedes Yvonne Lysacker (cello) and Sunny Zhai (piano) with singers, Brian Alvarado (baritone), and Katharine Li (soprano) and featuring spoken-word performance artist, Eman Rimawi-Doster.

Thursday November 20 at 3:00pm - take a midday break and enjoy an hour of music and Spoon Theory, or Friday November 21 at 6:30pm - a great way to wrap up the work week and prep for the weekend ahead at Opera America | National Opera Center at 330 7th Ave in midtown Manhattan on the 7th floor. The venue is fully accessible and ADA compliant.

Buy tickets here https://buytickets.at/operapraktikosinc
This program is also available as a live-stream broadcast on both performance days.

11/05/2025

Last on our re-introductions: Lisa Neher!

Who?
Described as a “supremely talented,” “visionary composer” (Willamette Week), and author of “liquid, impressionist piano writing and fluent melding” of voices (New York Classical Review), Dr. Lisa Neher’s compositions are inspired by the climate crisis, the tender love of family and friends, and the eerie mystery of deep ocean life.

What have you been working on?
Love in a Time of Climate Change, a 20-minute song cycle about the climate crisis, setting poetry by Craig Santos Perez, commissioned by the Oregon Music Teachers Association for their Composer of the Year award.

Fun fact…
Lisa loves board games and recently treated herself to the Oceania expansion of one of her favorite games, Wingspan!

The 2nd photo in this post is from Lisa's recent trip to Ireland. Fun fact: The River Shannon is the longest river in Ireland and by legend was carved by the Oilliphéist, which is a great sea-serpent-like creature. This inspired a piano piece she wrote for students.

11/03/2025

Continuing with our re-introductions, meet Carolyn Quick!

Who?
With a “deft touch at crafting melodies and textures” (Oregon ArtsWatch), Portland composer-Soprano Carolyn Quick (she/her) writes “deeply meaningful,” music about our fundamental, shared human experiences, making a “huge impact on both singers and audiences” (Dr. Justin Smith) and "establishing herself as one of the most important voices in our community" (Makrokosmos Project 7).

What have you been working on?
Seattle Opera Jane Lang Davis Creation Lab (a program which co-founder Drew is an alum of). For this program, she crafted a 20-minute opera with librettist Raya Tuffaha, putting treble voices at the center of the narrative, which premiered in June alongside 3 other newly commissioned operas.

Fun fact…
Carolyn is a huge history nerd and loves all things archaeology! Last Summer while traveling to Greece on a choir tour, she got to finally see one of the archaeological finds she’s only read about for so long - Mycenae! Bucket list item - check.

11/01/2025

As the 2025-2026 concert season is already in full swing, we think some re-introductions are in order!

First up, meet@Drew Swatosh, Composer & Vocalist!
(they/them):

Who?
Drew Swatosh (they/them) is a Portland, OR-based composer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist. “A programmatic composer at heart, stemming from their background in an integrated arts education” (Charles Rose, Oregon ArtsWatch), Drew writes eclectic music described as “music of naked protest and yet subtle beauty” (Lorin Wilkerson, Oregon ArtsWatch) as a means to process the world around them.

What have you been working in?
Incorporating libretto edits from a workshop with theater artist Melory Mirashrafi for their opera with Brian Dang, If Only I Could Give You the Sun.

Fun Fact...
When Drew is not composing music, they enjoy watching women soccer, regular attending home matches for Portland Thorns FC

10/12/2025

Congratulations to Raindrop New Music cofounder on a wonderful performance of her piece "she conjures" today with the Iowa Composers Forum!

Libretto by , performed by & !

08/31/2025

Happy Wedding Day to our lovely co-founder, ! 💜

We (Drew & Lisa) are so happy for you and to take this next step in your lives!

It has been wonderful to watch your relationship flourish over the past few years and we wish you a lifetime of happiness!

📸:

Address

Portland, OR

Website

https://linktr.ee/raindropnewmus

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