Happy new year!

Our Kickstarter campaign to commission Andy Akiho to write his first percussion quartet is in its final week! If you haven’t yet, please check out our campaign!

Lots of new things have been added to the campaign web site since the last time I posted here:

• Video of Andy’s incredible piece for 11 steel drummers, 1 metal drumset  and a whole bunch of junk metal played with kick drum pedals (“pedalmetal”), Alloy, is up on YouTube. We recorded this piece a spur-of-the-moment recording session at a warehouse in LA last May. Check it out!
• New rewards: for percussionists and percussion quartets we added a $240 reward. You’ll get the parts and score for the new piece six months before it’s published along with exclusive performing rights during those six months. Also, for any Japanese backers, we added a $120 reward that includes a lesson with Ayano Kataoka in Japan along with some other goodies.
• You backed – we delivered! In an update a week or so ago, we promised to post a brand new performance video for each $2000 that we raised. We hit $2000 a few days ago, so I posted a video that Andy and I made a few weeks ago. This was another impromptu session – we set up a few iPhones in the lobby of a building at Princeton University and let them roll for a few hours. Read more about and check out our video of Andy’s Karakurenai here.
• Finally, my friend Chris McGovern over at the arts blog The Glass wrote a nice piece about the campaign. Check that out here.

5 days left – please help us make this important contribution to the percussion quartet literature!