In Tuesday’s (2/1) New York Times, Ben Sisario writes that three years ago the Nashville Symphony used the crowdfunding site Kickstarter to help “finance an album of works by the composer Joan Tower…. The orchestra’s campaign raised $15,585 from 86 backers, and this month, ‘Stroke,’ one of Ms. Tower’s pieces from the resulting album, is up for a Grammy Award for best contemporary classical composition. ‘This project could not have happened were it not for the Kickstarter campaign,’ said Alan D. Valentine, president of the Nashville Symphony. Once viewed as a fringe area where baby bands make earnest pleas for help, Kickstarter and other crowdfunding sites like it have become part of the standard financial circuit for musicians of all types…. The Grammy nominations this year also show the site’s breadth. The composer Andrew Norman’s ‘Play’ is also up for contemporary composition, on an album by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project…. [Kickstarter] wants to make its coaching and promotion expertise available to more musicians.… For now, however, the most valuable asset that Kickstarter offers to artists may be its position as a conduit for money.”
Posted February 4, 2016
