BachScholar Publishing: Origins, History &Mission

(Written in February 2025,  by Cory Hall, Editor-In-Chief of BachScholar Publishing.)

INTRODUCTION

Mommy, when I grow up I want to create a music company with a special and unique purpose. (Cory Hall’s psyche at age four.)

Of course, a four-year-old would never say such a thing; however, keep reading and you will learn that this could have very possibly been an idea blooming in Cory’s head for the next 44 years without even knowing it!

In 2025, the entity know as BachScholar® celebrates its 14th year in existence. BachScholar® is a company with a mission and a purpose, which currently publishes premium musical editions (under BachScholar Publishing), hosts a lessons and sheet-music website (this site), as well as a subscription website for online piano learning (WellRoundedPianist.com).

The number 14 is the most important symbolic number for anything pertaining to J.S. Bach. This number was, after all, the product of the four letters in Bach’s name: B + A + C + H = 2 + 1 + 3 + 8 = 14. All Bach scholars and connoisseurs know this tidbit of information. It is common knowledge. Since 14 is the most important symbolic number for a company named "BachScholar”, this page has been created which is dedicated to teaching the public about the history, purpose and mission of BachScholar®. This is the most "public” Cory has been about his company to date, so read on…..   

This is the unique and profound story about how and why Cory established BachScholar® in 2011. We will also explore Cory’s unique and original idea of creating a solid three-pronged business model that has become the fortress-like foundation of BachScholar’s success since 2017. The history of BachScholar® can be broken down to two main phases, 2011-2016 and 2017-present.

ABOUT CORY

BachScholar Publishing, LLC was established in 2011 by classical virtuoso pianist, composer-arranger, teacher, Bach scholar, church organist, ragtime expert, and YouTube celebrity Cory Hall (D.M.A.) known all around the world by his BachScholar YouTube channel, established in 2008. Cory’s “classic” period as a YouTube artist was 2008-2015, which was when Cory churned out countless virtuoso ragtime arrangements, such as the video on the right, from 2010. But Cory is also a “serious” classical musician by heart, demonstrated in his most recent performance of Chopin’s famous C# Minor Nocturne from 2025 (to the right).

Cory earned a D.M.A. in piano performance and M.M. in musicology from the University of Kansas, M.M. in piano performance from the Eastman School of Music, and B.M. in piano performance from California State University, Sacramento (CSUS). In 2025, Cory celebrated his 14th year of being editor-in-chief at BachScholar Publishing and has grown into one of the world’s leading and most respected music editors. In 2017, Cory also developed and published the world’s leading system of sight-reading at the keyboard, Sight-Reading & Harmony (discussed below), which has been a perennial bestseller at BachScholar® since 2017.

As special note, Cory’s publishing and intellectual property legacy and the establishment of BachScholar Publishing is dedicated to the memory of Cory’s musicology advisor and most ardent supporter as a graduate student in the 1990s, the late Professor J. Bunker Clark (1931-2005), a respected musical editor and scholar in his own right. When everyone else was laughing off Cory’s “ridiculous” theory of tempo in the music of J.S. Bach, it was Professor Clark who stood apart from all others and supported Cory’s unconventional, and quite frankly, controversial propositions. (Please refer to the “Discovering Bach’s Secret Tempo Code” book-in-a-blog on this website for more on Cory’s Bach tempo theory..)

CORY’S RICH FAMILY MUSICAL HERITAGE

The photo to the right from ca. 1925 from somewhere in Tacoma, Washington shows Cory’s great-grand-family posing for their family band. Cory’s great grandmother (second from left) in her earlier days (i.e. the turn of the century) taught piano from home to home by way of horseback. Nearly a century later in 2012, Cory began carrying on this family tradition offering remote worldwide piano lessons in students’ own living rooms with help of a modern invention, the internet. If this isn’t “musical DNA”! 

The Hall family collectively had the talent to be able to play a variety of instruments. Cory’s great aunt Audrey (far left) would become a professional violinist, and as the eldest child she took piano lessons which she then taught to her younger siblings, Lewis (second from right, Cory’s grandfather) who played drums and Cory’s great uncle Kenny (far right), who would become a professional trumpet player and big band arranger.

But the fascinating story of musical legacy continues. Cory’s great uncle Kenny (a real renaissance man who also worked as a private investigator among other professions) would eventually establish a group of music stores in the Tacoma, WA area where he taught trumpet and sold instruments. Two generations later in 2011, Cory follows in Kenny’s footsteps by establishing BachScholar®, which offers piano lessons and publishes and sells piano sheet music. If this isn’t some more “musical DNA”! 

One of Cory’s mother’s favorite stories was when Cory was four (in 1967) she discovered Cory singing in harmony to the hit song “Downtown” on the radio. Singing harmonies at age four? If this isn’t some more “musical DNA”! But what is more, Cory’s mother recalls Cory also at age four playing the dishwasher buttons like a piano keyboard. Cory has so much music in every strand of his DNA, that Cory jokes that he may as well told his mother at age four:

Mommy, when I grow up I want to create a music company with a special and unique purpose.

Let us now fast-forward 44 years into the future!

THE EPIPHANY (Cory’s religious experience)

In early Spring, 2011 Cory began composing his monumental 10 Biblical Portraits as well as his exciting and virtuosic 4 Medieval Portraits. Two of the most epic and demanding pieces from each of these cycles may be viewed to the right, The Great Flood of Noah and The Jester’s Delight. To the average person this seems like no big accomplishment, which is a composer composing some piano works. This happens probably thousands of times each day throughout the world. However, Cory’s testimony is much different.

Cory was improvising at his beautiful 1929 Steinway on a calm and peaceful evening, and having composed virtually nothing original before this time (except some arrangements), Cory churned out the 10 Biblical Portraits and 4 Medieval Portraits by late Summer. Then, Cory began discovering symbolic elements in his 10 Biblical Portraits that were not planned, but rather, Cory discovered these things after composing the works! For example, The Garden of Eden has two flats (signifying the first two humans), is in 2/4 time, and the melody is constructed with in groups of twos. Cory never remembers planning any of these things. They just happened by themselves.

Cory believes this is when he became a true Christian with full assurance of salvation by work of the Holy Spirit in his musical creations. God had given him a sign. Prior to 2011, despite having served for 10 years as church organist in a large United Methodist congregation, Cory believes he had not achieved assurance of salvation.

In 2012, Cory resigned as organist to focus on his new company. Along the way, Cory attended various Southern Baptist churches and eventually met his wife Marilyn in one of these congregations. Today in 2025, Cory and wife Marilyn are both confessing Lutherans at Grace Lutheran Church in St. Petersburg, Florida (LCMS) where Cory is on staff as pianist for Saturday Divine services and Marilyn plays in the handbell choir. Cory and Marilyn are now happy grandparents. In the meantime, Cory has been building up BachScholar® full-time by himself, singlehandedly for 14 years (currently, 2011-present).

As a result of having composed two very important opuses in the course of a few months in 2011, BachScholar Publishing was born. Cory needed to publish his new works and the only way to do this was to establish his own company, BachScholar Publishing, LLC. Cory had visions of what kind of publishing company he wished BachScholar would be and become.  

BACHSCHOLAR PUBLISHING: AN IDEAL BLEND OF THE SACRED & SECULAR

From day one in 2011, Cory’s mission of BachScholar Publishing has been:

To create a publishing company that J.S. Bach would have created or approved of were Bach living as a pianist in 2011. Such a publisher would be more well-rounded and multi-dimensional than most of the giants in the music publishing world. Such a company would give equal emphasis to sacred and secular works (as Bach did), edited performance and educational editions as well as more plain Urtexts, more student-oriented editions as well as material for virtuosos, technique and theory/harmony books, and especially, a large collection of Bach’s works arranged for the modern-day piano. Virtually nothing is off-limits with BachScholar Publishing just as virtually nothing was off limits for Bach. This is piano music and educational material for everyone. Fun children’s music is just as welcome as academic Urtexts. Secular music is just as welcome as liturgical music.  

Music Publishing companies tend to specialize in a particular niche and publish virtually nothing that does not conform to their model or statement. For example, companies like Henle or Bärenreiter publish exclusively Urtext editions. On the other end of the spectrum are publishing giants like Alfred, who publish mainly educational editions and material geared for piano teachers and students. Henle’s mission and Alfred’s mission are in total opposition to each other and their musical editions are as different as oil and water, yet Henle and Alfred each thrive in their particular niche and serve their particular purpose.

Just as giants as these thrive in their particular niche, BachScholar’s niche is and always has been to glorify and publish all aspects of musical science as applied to the modern-day piano. There is absolutely no competition with other publishing companies here. Each may learn from and benefit the others. Bach considered himself to be not merely a composer, but one who creates works of musical science (Wolff). If we really wish to be open-minded and objective as possible, we really need a publishing company to promulgate this vision. This was Cory’s vision in 2011 and is still to the day of this writing, 2025.

Here is a bullet-point list of the main attributes of BachScholar Publishing:

• Sacred & Secular - First and foremost, Bach was a devout Lutheran. This cannot be overemphasized. To Bach and to most Lutherans, the sacred and secular are all basically the same thing under different packages. For example, Bach composed his Orgelbüchlein specifically to be played as liturgical church music but also composed his Brandenburg Concerti or Coffee Cantata for much different, secular occasions. To Bach, both church music and non-church music were considered gifts from God, which is why even secular music and modern styles such as ragtime and jazz are also, in essence, just as “sacred” as church compositions. This is why we must give equal emphasis to the sacred and secular, since they are one and the same, artistically speaking. This is diametrically opposed to the current publishing model of publishing either exclusively Christian material or non-Christian material. If Bach were alive today playing background piano music at a cocktail party, he may be playing some of his liturgical Orgelbüchlein pieces arranged for the piano, followed by perhaps some more worldly and secular ragtime arrangements of some of his favorite chorales. Religious music does not need to be boring music. For example, listen to Cory’s fun “cool swing” arrangement of Bach’s Chorale, BWV 40, “We Christian People” (to the right) played from his Bach Meets Ragtime publication!  

• Digital Sheet Music - BachScholar published exclusively digital sheet music from 2011-2017. Producing and selling quality digital sheet music was one of BachScholar’s missions since the beginning. Around the early 2000s with the birth and rise of digital sheet music, Cory noticed that most digital sheet music available at the time was of very low quality, produced by editors who know nothing about piano music and sheet music full of mistakes and errors. Cory wanted to fix this problem, which is one reason for the establishment of BachScholar Publishing, to produce the highest quality, instantly downloadable sheet music for piano. It is significant to note that BachScholar® was the first publisher in the world (and may still be the only one) to publish their entire catalogue in instantly downloadable PDF Editions. Hence, every BachScholar® book has a corresponding PDF Edition, which is exactly the same, the only difference being the volume number.

• Sight-Reading & Harmony — In 2017, Cory published his monumental and now world-renowned and highly respected pedagogical work, Sight-Reading & Harmony. It became an instant bestseller and to date is still the top seller at BachScholar®. Sight-Reading & Harmony, with its original five-tier system of reading hymns and chorales, is indisputably the world’s leading system of sight-reading. This is how Bach would have taught sight-reading. This book is guaranteed to be a bestseller in years to come. The hugely popular and successful website and app, Piano Marvel, have incorporated the Sight-Reading & Harmony system and book into their app, as well as a few other BachScholar publications.

• The Well-Rounded Pianist - To accompany his new bestselling book, in 2017 Cory established The Well-Rounded Pianist, a subscription based platform for piano learning. The Well-Rounded Pianist was born with over 1000 tutorials dedicated to Sight-Reading & Harmony alone. To date, WRP hosts nearly 3000 total private videos available to members throughout throughout the world. Cory has developed into a master teacher and communicator in the process.

• BachScholar Editions - Cory almost hit a dead-end with the publication of the now world famous book, Sight-Reading & Harmony. In 2017, BachScholar was publishing exclusively digital editions but Cory needed to begin hardcopy production yet did not know how to do it and lacked the funds. By happenstance Cory discovered Subito Music Corporation, who prints and ships classical music books on demand through their entity, Subito Music Distribution (SMD). Cory established a relationship with Subito, and now to date since 2017, has produced nearly 50 volumes shipped worldwide.

• Format & Branding - When designing BachScholar book covers in 2017, Cory sought a simple, uncluttered and minimalist style in black and white. Fonts to convey quality and trust were carefully selected and a most elegant logo was designed, which received its registered trademark in 2016. In addition, both websites are listed on the back of all book covers, showing the synergistic relationship between each of the two websites, which signify the “theoretical” (BachScholar.com) and “practical” (WellRoundedPianist.com). At the end of each book is the “BachScholar seal”, which consists of Bach’s own family crown with his initials "J.S.B.” with the inscription "finis - S.D.G” (Soli Deo Gloria) which is the standard way Bach would signify the end of his works - The End, Glory to God Alone.  Currently, Cory is re-editing many of the older book covers to achieve a more consistent model, similar to the Schirmer model, but of course unique in its own way. Cory prefers a simple, direct, and minimalist look for the covers in plain black and white. This neutral and objective look with an elegant logo and family seals is what Bach most likely would have preferred.

• Cataloging - One important hallmark of BachScholar Editions is the listing of the volume number in the top right corner. Cory borrowed this idea from Schirmer. It is the best and most efficient way to catalogue volumes of music books. This is much easier than referring to titles. What sets BachScholar apart from other publishers is the way the digital and hardcopy editions are differentiated and labelled. All hardcopy editions have even volume numbers and all PDF editions have odd volume numbers. This is the easiest and most foolproof way of cataloging musical volumes. The only difference between BachScholar’s Hardcopy Editions and PDF Editions is that the former always has an ISBN number and the latter does not since it is not a physical product. Each BachScholar Hardcopy Edition has its corresponding PDF Edition purchasable on this website. The Hardcopy Edition always has an even volume number while the corresponding PDF Edition has the next highest odd number. It is really this simple! To top it off, the BachScholar Publishing Catalogue does not begin with Vol. 1 but Vol. 14. (Please see discussion earlier about the significance of the number 14 in Bach scholarship.)

• House Style - Since its inception in 2011, Cory always sought better and clearer ways to convey musical notation to music readers and to focus on the beauty and esthetics of music engraving. This requires careful attention to detail, which requires skilled musical editing. Not all publishers use the most optimal settings for fonts, line darkness, etc. Cory has developed BachScholar book production into an uncomplicated, streamlined process using just three softwares: Sibelius, Microsoft Word, and Adobe, which produces some of the finest musical editions in the world today. 

BachScholar’s flagship publication and perrenial bestseller.

GO TO THE BACHSCHOLAR PUBLISHING CATALOGUE