LES NOCES gets a KICKSTARTER Campaign!

Hello!

As you may know, ten of my closest friends and I are creating a new production of Igor Stravinsky’s Les Noces (The Wedding). We have arranged the piece for a small ensemble of vocalists, pianos, percussion, and bass, and will perform it twice at the end of this month, July 29 & 30. Yay!

And now, we have a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the project!

This is a pretty hefty endeavor. First of all…it’s Stravinsky! The music is hard: the vocalists are required to sing lines that aren’t exactly intuitive, and the rhythms are as tricky as they get. The two pianists are playing parts originally intended for four. Not to toot our collective horn, but when we pull this off, we’re all getting classical music merit badges.

In order to cover our production costs (and, hey, even pay the performers), we’ve started a Kickstarter.com campaign. You’ve probably heard about Kickstarter, a site dedicated to helping independent artists of all flavors finance ambitious projects. The way it works is that we propose a project, set a financial goal, and outline what we plan to do with the money. Some propose huge projects requiring many thousands of dollars—ours is more modest, but no less important to our Les Noces.

We’re trying to raise $1900 by July 28. This will cover our production costs (everything ranging from music copying to promotional materials to recording and equipment) and performer fees. Kickstarter works like this: you pledge a particular amount, and if we meet our goal, we use the money to pay for the project. If we don’t meet our goal, we receive nothing. I’ll say that again:

If we don’t meet our goal, we receive nothing. You pay your pledge only if we reach our goal.

Of course, if we don’t reach our goal, we’ll still perform Les Noces! The project simply would be more expensive for us, personally. We love this project, so we’ll perform it no matter what. But, ultimately, we must make our efforts sustainable. As performing artists, we seek to perform: successful fundraising means that we’ll keep performing Les Noces beyond the two announced dates, for as long as we can!

Here is a link to the Kickstarter campaign, outlining the various pledge tiers and what YOU will get if you contribute! That’s right, in addition to supporting our project, you’ll receive special gifts according to how much you pledge. Just like public TV!

Kickstarter:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/351603906/igor-stravinskys-les-noces-the-wedding

Note, this campaign is not for purchasing tickets to the performances. If you’re in the Bay Area and would like to attend, please get one of the (very limited) tickets here:

Tickets:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/185572

The performances are at 8pm on July 29 & 30 at the storied Maybeck House in Berkeley, CA. If you’re on Facebook, view our event page here:

Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=180662491988326

Thanks for reading about our project. I sincerely hope you’re interested and would like to contribute. Any amount helps, and though $1900 might seem like a lot, lots of little pledges do wonders. At the end of the day, this is a labor of love, and I hope you’ll consider any pledge as such.

Yours,
Dominique