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Update 5/21/2012 (scroll down for Project Description, listing of CD contents, and audio/video links):

Wonderful news!! We have been successsful in achieving our first goal of raising $3,000 toward the cost of our professional CD recording, The Valley Sings! We have been touched by the generosity of friends, family, and strangers in helping us raise $3,801 in 21 days! Thanks to you, we have our recording dates all set for the second and third weeks of June, 2012. However, our campaign doesn't stop here - this is just the beginning!

Given the nature of the Kickstarter process, we set our fundraising goal at the bare minimum we would need to commit to the recording process. We didn't want to ask for $6,000, get only $3,000 in pledges, and end up empty-handed. In reality, we need an additional $3,000 to see the project to its completion, which includes duplication, promotion and distribution of the CD.

All of this is to say: you can still be a part of this exciting venture! Although we have met our first goal, we have 9 days left to raise the additional money we need to complete our CD project. By becoming a backer of The Valley Sings, you will still receive the fabulous rewards we offer for various levels of support, including a copy of the CD for a $25 contribution. Your pledge toward our campaign will help music born in the Hudson Valley come to life, and will help add new music to the world's choral library. We have loved being a part of supporting the creative energy of today's most vibrant Hudson Valley composers - many having their works professionally recorded for the first time. Join us! We think you'll love it too!

Project Description

Kairos: A Consort of Singers, the premiere vocal ensemble of the Hudson Valley, New York, would like to follow up on their critically-acclaimed 2008 holiday CD, "Christus Natus Est", with a recording of a cappella choral works by Hudson Valley composers entitled "The Valley Sings". This is a unique opportunity to share the wonderful choral works of composers who have lived and/or worked in the Hudson Valley: Aaron Copland, George Tsontakis, John B Hedges, Peter Schickele, Craig Fryer, Panaiotis, Edward Lundergan, Jonathan Russell, Shirley Hoffman Warren, Peter Sipple, and James Fitzwilliam. The recording will feature both well-known and rarely-heard choral works and will include several never-recorded pieces such as Peter Schickele's After Spring Sunset, a set of 9 pieces based on Japanese haiku texts (translated into English), George Tstontakis' Rossetti Nursery Rhymes, a set of 3 nursery rhymes by 19th century British poet Christina Rossetti, and John B Hedges' new work Exeter Riddles,  a set of five pieces for chorus, harp and drum set to Old English texts from the tenth century Exeter Book.The recording will be done over the spring and summer 2012 with release scheduled for fall 2012.

Kairos would like to raise at least $3,000 for the professional recording and mastering of this CD; anything over $3,000 will be used for the duplication, promotion and distribution of the CD.

Please help us make this worthwhile project a reality!

CD Cover photo of Hudson Valley used with permission of Brian Abrams

Listing of CD Contents

• Thou, O Jehovah, Abideth Forever - Aaron Copland
• Pied Beauty (Gerard Manly Hopkins) - Peter Sipple
• Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord (Hopkins) - Peter Sipple
• God's Grandeur (Hopkins) - Peter Sipple
• Exeter Riddles - John B Hedges
• When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer (Walt Whitman) - Edward Lundergan
• The Dark Hills (Edwin Arlington Robinson) - Edward Lundergan
• A Noiseless Patient Spider (Walt Whitman) - Edward Lundergan
• Arise, My Love - Panaiotis
• A Rose of Sharon - James Fitzwilliam
• After Spring Sunset - Peter Schickele
• Rossetti Nursery Rhymes - George Tsontakis
• Purpose of a Cat (David Appelbaum) - Shirley Hoffman Warren
• O Cool is the Valley Now (James Joyce) - Jonathan Russell
• Rain Has Fallen (Joyce) - Jonathan Russell
• Flight into Egypt (Joseph Brodsky; trans. Seamus Heaney) - Craig Fryer
• Coventry Carol (traditional) - Craig Fryer
• from spiraling ecstatically this (E. E. Cummings) - Craig Fryer

Audio/Video Links

Click here to hear one of the pieces that we'll be recording for the CD: Pied Beauty by Hudson Valley composer (and Kairos Member) Peter Sipple. Recorded live at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in New Paltz on Sunday, May 8, 2011.

Click here for another live performance of one of the wonderful pieces we'll be recording for the CD: "No. 3: Water" from John B Hedges' Exeter Riddles, which was commissioned by and premiered by Kairos at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church on May 8, 2011.

Click here to view Kairos performing the "Agnus Dei" from William Byrd's Mass for 4 Voices in the wonderful Holy Cross Monastery chapel, where we'll be recording our CD. If the video is blurry, click the "HQ" button at the bottom right of the video.

Click here to read a review of our first CD, "Christus Natus Est"