Viola da Gamba Society of America

Project Description (what funds are needed for):

I'm asking for $1500 "seed money" to help raise funds to make the last pardessus solo recording on my bucket list; a CD of four suites written by Marais and arranged by Villeneuve for pardessus and continuo. John Mark Rozendaal and Webb Wiggins and I will be recording in August with Antonino D'Urzo, who engineered our last CD, Fêtes Galantes. Using Alice Renken's Villeneuve edition, we plan to record composite suites in D major, B minor, G major and E minor, about 65 minutes of music in all. We've performed the D major and B minor suites, and plan to perform the other two at a house concert/fund raiser in DC this summer.

My personal answer to the question that often pops up in the middle of the night ("There are so many good young performers these days, what can we older performers do to contribute to the field?") is, "I can do things that I'm good at, things that others aren't doing." HESPERUS is good at early music silent film scores, and we're recording a score of French medieval music for the 1923 film "Hunchback of Notre Dame" soon. I've had a lot of experience on the pardessus, and none of Villeneuve's Marais arrangements for pardessus have been recorded yet. I think they need to be heard because in the viol family, unlike the violin family, the bass instrument is king. Most of the solo repertoire is written for it, and virtuoso performers seldom play treble, except to take a stab at the top part of a Purcell fantasy. But I think that the process of adaptation, of borrowing one instrument's repertoire to play on another, is an important way of stripping away the technical constraints of the original instrument and uncovering the composer's pure intention. The three of us found this to be true when we recorded some Forqueray on pardessus on our last CD, "Fêtes Galantes." Forqueray suggests five-string pardessus on his title page, not treble, which makes all the fingerings and many of the chord voicings moot. However, any simplification that may have resulted didn't make the music superficial or less persuasive. Who knew? After you take away all that whomping, Forqueray stands quite well on its own.

Villeneuve must have thought that Marais would sound good on pardessus; he arranged hundreds of movements and made some interesting, unexpected changes. Let's hear what they sound like.

P.S. In this new era of streaming audio, some say that CDs are passé. That may prove true sooner than we think. However, for the moment, the act of curating a CD; deciding on the order, the pacing, balancing the loudness, presence and image of the various movements in particular and of the suites as a whole, creates a final product with integrity and balance, and I think it's still worthwhile to conceive of this project in CD form, no matter how it's experienced later.

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Total cost of project: The current estimated cost is $19,600. This is on the high side because we need to rent a harpsichord when we record in DC, we'll probably need to rent space, and I prefer to err on the generous side when estimating editing time. A budget is attached below.

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Proposal to cover the difference:
For three of my past five pardessus CDs, crowd-funding worked well, and I raised an average of $15,000. These days, the story of an instrument created as a stopgap for marginalized women to play that finds a much wider, appreciative audience should be even more popular. However, times are hard, tax payments are large, and you can't take anything for granted.

One thing that always works well is using money from one donor as seed money to encourage others to donate, and that's how I'd like to use this grant from the VdGSA. It means a lot to me to have the Society's backing; not just with funding, but being given the opportunity at last summer's Conclave to present a summary of our 2017 Pardessus Conference at BEMF. I wish I didn't need to ask for monetary support; while I'm healthy and active now, my recent health issues put a crimp in my earning power for a few years and I'm still catching up. And when you get older and different parts of your body suddenly stop behaving, the suggestion to "Take it slowly, put off recording," seems pretty senseless.

MARAIS/VILLENEUVE ESTIMATED RECORDING BUDGET 4-14-19
TINA CHANCEY

EXPENSES

AMOUNT
PRE-PRODUCTION
Fundraising Video $150

SESSIONS (4 days)
Hall (est) $1000
Engineer 4 days x 8 hours x $100 $3200
Harpsichord & Barbara Wolf
(tuner and score reader) $2300
Webb 4 days x $500 $2000
JM 4 days x $500 $2000

POST-PRODUCTION
First edit: 30 hours @ $100 $3000
Second edit: 20 hours @ $100 $2000
Mastering 5 hrs @ $100 $ 500

CD DUPLICATION
Booklet design $800
Duplication: $1.40/CD x 1000 $1400

MISC
Travel 2 x $300 $600
Mailing of CDs and Perks, est. $400
Perk expenses, est. $250


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TOTAL EXPENSES $19,600


INCOME
Crowd-funding $10,000
(VdGSA seed money) $1500
Foundation grant (applied for) $3000
Private contributions $2000
Fundraising concert $3100
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TOTAL INCOME $19,600