Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Pianist Lara Downes Using Kickstarter.com to fund recording project, '13 Ways of Looking at the Goldberg'


[Lara Downes]

Pianist Lara Downes has thanked AfriClassical for the prior post and has told us of her next recording project:

“I really appreciate the support. I'd also love for you to know about my current campaign on Kickstarter to raise funding for my next recording project: 13 Ways of Looking at the Goldberg. 13 Ways is a set of new variations on Bach's Goldberg Variations, by a group of today's most renowned composers, including 2010 Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Higdon. These wonderful pieces reimagine the Goldbergs in a variety of ways, celebrating both the eternal beauty of Bach's music, and the musical evolutions of the past 250 years. The variations are performed alongside Bach's original theme, like this:

Bach: Aria, from Goldberg Variations
C. Curtis-Smith: Rube Goldberg Variation
Jennifer Higdon: The Gilmore Variation
Mischa Sarche Zupko: Ghost Variation
Stanley Walden: Fantasy Variation
Bright Sheng: Variation Fugato
Derek Bermel: Kontraphunktus
Bach: Variation 13, from Goldberg Variations
David Del Tredici: My Goldberg (Gymnopedie #1)
Fred Lerdahl: Chasing Goldberg
William Bolcom: Yet Another Goldberg Variation (for left hand alone)
Lukas Foss: Goldmore Variation
Ralf Gothóni: Variation on Variation with Variation
Fred Hersch: Melancholy Minuet
Bach: Aria (reprise), from Goldberg Variations

This is a world-premiere recording (I have the rights for the first recording from Edition Peters), which I plan to release on the Innova label in the fall of 2011. I'm raising the funding through Kickstarter to support the recording and production of the CD. Kickstarter is a nice way for independent artists to fund creative projects, by asking friends, fans, sponsors and music lovers to pledge contributions. It's an all-or-nothing campaign: if I reach my goal of $5000 the project gets funded. If I don't meet my goal, my backers' pledges do not get charged, and I receive no money at all. At this point I've raised about $1750, over 1/3 of my goal, but I only have 11 days left!

I'm asking all of my friends and supporters to help me get the word out about this campaign in order to reach as many interested backers as possible. Anything you can do to share this information with your Africlassical followers and all your associates in the music community would be immensely helpful!

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You are officially THE BEST! L

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