Kickstarter

The Project Burning Sister is a commissioning project between myself, cellist, Seth Woods and composer and performer, Fred Ho.

I first met Fred about three years ago while working on the music of prolific jazz composer Cal Massey. I had previously heard his music and fell in love with the world of sounds and grooves he created. During the process we toyed with the idea of him writing a duo for baritone sax and cello, which would make a damn sexy combination, yeah? Now fast-forward a few years and I feel that we finally need to make this happen.

Those that know Fred, are aware he has been fighting a long battle with cancer for many years and it was recently discovered his cancer has metastasized. It's been a dream to perform a duo with him and now this news makes it a top priority for me. This composition will also be one of the last compositions by Fred Ho (as his health is deteriorating).

It would be an honor to have a piece written for me by him, but to perform it with him would be mind blowing. This project is to cover his composer's fee. Any and all donations incurred after the $1000 target is reached will be used to help create a composer portrait concert of his music featuring some of his old colleagues and current protege Ben Barson.

Fred Ho Biography:

Fred Ho is a one-of-a-kind revolutionary Chinese American baritone saxophonist, composer, writer, producer, political activist and leader of the Afro Asian Music Ensemble and the Monkey Orchestra. For two decades, he has innovated an Afro-Asian New American Multicultural Music embedded in the swingest, most soulful and transgressive forms of African American music with the musical influences of Asia and the Pacific Rim. As Larry Birnbaum writes in Down Beat “Fred Ho's style is a genre onto itself, a pioneering fusion of free-jazz and traditional Chinese music that manages to combine truculence and delicacy with such natural ease that it sounds positively organic.”

By donating what you can, Fred will be able to get the commissioning fee that he deserves for writing this new work. In addition, your contributions will also help create a true gem to be added to the cello repertory of today as well as help me realize a dream of performing in a duo with him.

So, please give what you can to help create a piece that will celebrate this prolific human being!

Many thanks and look forward to sharing this creation with you all.

Seth Woods