A Kickstart for Polly Moller

Polly Moller has a special evening of her compositions coming up in December, and she’s using Kickstarter to help secure a grant to pay the musicians.

That is, she’s applying for a $1,000 grant that will only come through if she puts up a matching $1,000. Kickstarter helped her raise the money (and the project is still open for supplementary donations, through Nov. 3).

Moller’s program will be on Saturday, Dec. 18, at Trinity Chapel in Berkeley. The program, which seems to combine directed improvisations and traditional composing, includes a piece for improvising quartet; solos for piccolo and voice; a duo with Gino Robair and someone playing “invented instruments;” and a new piece for quintet.  The evening caps with a conducted improvisation for 12 that dates back to 2006.

As for this Kickstarter thing …

It’s an interesting model for funding the arts (or any other kind of project) and for giving the audience a deeper way to participate. They get an ownership stake, figuratively or even literally. An artist posts a project to the site, challenging supporters to supply the funding. If the project doesn’t make its goal, all the money goes back.

(If you want to get all Web 2.0 pseudoscience-y about it, you can read about how sites like this create an addictively fun aspect to giving.)

In the case of music, Kickstarter seems popular for funding recordings. Free copies, T-shirts, and sheet music are among the common gifts for contributors. Moller is offering CD copies of the concert (which won’t be mass-produced), sheet music, and more.

Her project has already reached its goal. So, anything you pledge will immediately get charged to your credit card or PayPal account. Still, the goal simply means Moller gets a matching grant to help pay the musicians. It’s still not much of a payment, and it would certainly be nice to add a little more to the pool, to help Moller express gratitude to these dedicated musicians who are working hard to make her career milestone happen.

Find out more, here, but do it before Nov. 3  at 10:00 a.m. That’s the deadline.