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Cellist Clare O’Connell introduces her new kickstarter campaign

The creation of three new luminous contemporary works for cello by three outstanding female composers to be recorded on my next album.

This Kickstarter campaign is to raise money to pay for the commissions of three brand new works by outstanding female composers: Emily Hall, Emilie Levienaise Farrouch and Natalie Klouda, all to be recorded with the record label NMC on an album celebrating 21st century music for solo cello, and cello and electronics. On top of that, Natalie’s piece will receive its world premiere in the Wigmore Hall on International Women’s day, March 8th 2024.

It launches on 7 March and runs until 6 April 2023.

This will be the first solo cello album that NMC has supported, and we want it to be as uplifting and as experimental as possible, focussing on sharing the feeling of lightness, and lifting up with audiences, something very close to my heart and deeply relevant given the challenges of the past few years.

I am passionate about creating and sharing beautiful and moving musical experiences with people, both live and recorded, and I’m committed to raising up and collaborating with new artistic voices. So I’m thrilled to be collaborating with Emily, Natalie and Emilie, whose work will be represented alongside works by leading composers Edmund Finnis, Alex Mills and Nick Martin.

I also believe in paying performers and creators fairly for their work and the creativity that goes into it – it ensures greater equality, diversity, and freedom in art and thought.

This is where you come in! If you want to see experimental contemporary music created, if you want to see composers and musicians paid fairly for their work, if you want to hear new music for solo cello, if you want to support composers and performers exploring creative freedom and risk-taking, if you think music is one of the essential ways we connect with each other as fellow humans… then I would love to welcome you as a supporter.

To support please follow this link:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/oconnellcello/light-flowing

Every donation made is crucial in bringing this new music to life and I’m incredibly grateful for your support.

REWARDS

I am offering some really beautiful rewards for donations in this campaign, all linked with the music to be created.

They include printed scores of the new compositions, dedications crediting donors in the printed scores, exclusive downloads of music by the composers played by Clare, one to one cello lessons and even a live house concert!

I’m hugely grateful to my friends and colleagues David Le Page, Clara Sanabras, Susi Evans and Jack McNeill & Liam Byrne for offering to donate copies of their own CDs towards the campaign.

Also to wonderful artist Luke Hannam for his generosity in allowing me to make a limited edition print of a sketch he made of me as I was developing ideas behind this body of music, and to photographer Yvonne Catterson for her artistry and whose stunning imagery will be used in the final album artwork.

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The hidden harmonies of your favourite Bach Cello Suite unleashed with choir!

Cellist and composer Sophie Webber shines a new light on Bach’s iconic and much-loved solo cello suites by combining solo cello with a choir.

it has been my dream to present this gorgeous music in a new context and to challenge listeners who may think they don’t enjoy Bach with an alternative presentation that does allow them a “way in.” My cello teachers would all tell me to “hear the implied harmonies” in the music… the idea of combining the solo cello suites with choir always seemed very natural to me… a realization of what is already there

– Sophie Webber

The ultimate goal of the project is to record a CD of the first and third cello suites alongside an original choral arrangement performed by the choristers of St Paul’s Cathedral, San Diego.

To find out more and to support this interesting and valuable project which aims to bring classical music to a wider audience, please visit Sophie’s kickstarter page here.

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Sophie Webber

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Gottschalk and Cuba is a journey through 150 years of music which started with a 19th-century American pianist-composer visiting Havana in Cuba and a 21st-century Cuban pianist who came to America telling the story……

548f7ab6a0c07_louis_moreau_gottschalkNew Orleans born Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869) was one of the most astonishing keyboard virtuosos in 19th-century America. But he was much more than that. He was America’s first important pianist-composer. He was an extraordinary traveler, bringing his virtuosity to Europe, to Central and South America and to the Caribbean, where he lived in Cuba for extended periods. As a composer, his unique style combined his Creole musical heritage with the American, Latin American and Afro-Caribbean influences he absorbed during his travels – all expressed within the boundaries of classical piano writing prevalent in the 19th century. Gottschalk made friends wherever he traveled and these far-reaching connections are the subject of Cuban pianist Antonio Itturioz‘s new project Gottschalk and Cuba, a CD containing aantonio world premiere recording of the entire Nuit des Tropiques, Symphony Romantique, both movements, on one piano. The programme also features Antonio’s transcription for solo piano of the second movement (Fiesta Criolla) of Gottschalk’s monumental Nuit des Tropiques, (Night in the Tropics), a symphony Gottschalk wrote on the island of Martinique after living several years in Cuba. It is a historic work because it is the first symphony written by an American composer. After Gottschalk’s death, his friend Nicolas Ruiz Espadero published a two-piano version of this symphony which is the basis for Antonio’s transcription. In addition, the CD features piano music by well-known Cuban composers whose works all have connections to Gottschalk in one way or another.

More information about Antonio Itturioz’s ‘Gottschalk and Cuba’ kickstarter project here

Interview with Antonio Itturioz

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British concert pianist Daniel Grimwood is fundraising to save this historic piano, an 1850s Erard, similar to the type and make of piano Chopin, Liszt, Clara Schumann and others would have known and performed on.

Here Daniel explains why this piano is important in the study, understanding and performance of mid-nineteenth century piano music:

These instruments offer an unclouded sonority, separation of register and clarity which enliven music of the 19th Century in a magical way. Hearing music performed on the instruments for which it was written is always illuminating; it opens up aspects of a score which can often seem nonsensical on modern pianos.

See Daniel talk about and perform Liszt on a similar instrument:

Daniel is fundraising via Kickstarter. You can read all about the project, watch a video presentation and make a pledge by visiting his Kickstarter page.

Please consider supporting this interesting and worthwhile project. Historic pianos like this Erard can teach us a great deal about how music was composed and performed. They are also beautiful pieces of furniture in their own right.

Meet the Artist……Daniel Grimwood