Symphonic Project: My “Ukraine” Symphony.
CROWDFUNDER CAMPAIGN to finance the symphony recording.
I have been writing a symphony based on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and have just launched a Crowdfunder campaign to raise the funds to record the piece with a top London Symphony orchestra. In case you are confused - and had contributed to the former KICKSTARTER campaign, we’d be grateful if you would switch your unfulfilled pledge to the new CROWDFUNDER One. Sorry for the inconvenience.
THE SYMPHONY
A symphony often reflects the feelings and events observed by the composer, and mine is no different. I am writing about what I see every day on the news and all over social media; what deeply concerns me and millions of others. Not just Ukraine, but all that is happening in the USA and the Middle East. But my focus is specifically Ukraine. It is not so much a protest (although it may just as well be) but a reflection of strong thoughts stimulated by the suffering and violence of the war. I am scoring the piece for a traditional symphonic line-up, and each of the four movements will reflect a stage of it, starting from normal life before the invasion and moving on to the nightmare of war, then a slow movement of romance and mourning, and a finale projecting a spirit of hope for the future.
Excitingly for us, we have entered discussions with Symphony Orchestra in Ukraine, and I hope to go out to record the finished piece in KYIV
We have switched to the CROWDFUNDER platform in order to enable the piece to be recorded independently. Also we now have a Ukrainian “charity” element to our fund-raise, KICKSTARTER don’t allow that, hence the change to Crowdfunder.
This is it is not an obviously commercial venture that I could easily take to a record company. I’m hoping people who know my work will pre-order the album as a gesture of support; a leap of faith, not having heard it, so that it is effectively being commissioned by its audience while being made.
In this age of streaming, an uncommercial classical project like this would not get made without audience support. Rather than expect it magically to take flight on some random Tiktok post or something, I am hoping to find my audience through this platform.
Please click the CROWDFUNDER link HERE and share with everyone you can so we can keep this project going!