My choir does a musical every summer and this year we're having trouble finding something to do. We don't have access to an orchestra or even a small group of instrumentalists so we have you use "canned music", pre recorded accompaniment. For 3 of our shows we used Broadway Jr. cuttings which come with accompaniment CD's and for one of our shows, our choir director made accompaniment CD's using a computer software system. It worked just fine but it took a really really loooong time to do. We're finding this to be very limiting and I'm wondering if there is anyway to find pre-recorded accompaniment CD's for an entire show. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I presume you have a choir accompanist? If so, you could try doing a show with Piano and keyboard accompaniment (the keyboard providing the tone colour etc).

I've done shows that way and they have worked well overall.

However, if you're wanting the authentic sound then, I guess, you're into digital/CD recordings. I'm afraid I don't know of any "backing tracks" for musicals. I suppose you could try the publishers or those issuing the performance licences to see if they have any ideas.

What's wrong with just piano? If the musical is good it may be enough.

We used to do them at school with piano.

There are some publishers who produce performance CD's of Musicals. When we did Grease at school we did it with backing tracks. Try www.mtishows.com
Some are not available in the UK though. They do have a comprehensive show finder.
Alternatively, some shows work fine with just piano - Oliver, Bugsy Malone, Crazy for You
If you can add drums this is sometimes good too. Other musicals have a small selection of instruments. The Little Shop of Horrors is scored for Piano, Keyboard, Drums, Bass and Guitar only. The Bass and Guitar are no essential though.
Happy searching,
David

QUOTE

The Little Shop of Horrors

Great musical too