ORCA, THE NEW SYMPHONY BY SERJ TANKIAN:
LIVE SHOW & ALBUM RECORDING
Hello Friends,
I am very excited to share my most personal, compelling musical project to date: my first-ever full symphony called ORCA. I have an incredible opportunity to record and perform ORCA live with the world renowned Das Karussell Orchestra (featuring members of the Bruckner Orchester) at Brucknerhaus in Linz, Austria on October 28th, 2012 and with your involvement and support, we can make it happen!
Many of you know my work in rock music, between System of a Down and my solo album releases. While I have rearranged some of my past rock compositions to be performed as orchestral pieces, such as the Elect The Dead Symphony in 2010, ORCA is the first 4 act symphony that I have composed, a mix of early 20th century compositional styles combined with the powerful range of film scoring. I decided to name my symphony ORCA because orcas "appear to have no parallel outside humans" in terms of their cultural faculties. An orca is really a dolphin with much darker tendencies. I see this dichotomy as a great metaphor for humanity.
Last year, I wrote and recorded a professionally sampled studio version with the goal of being able to record it properly with a full orchestra….this was not something I could capture in a small home studio. I was able to play with The Das Karussell Orchestra at Brucknerhaus during the Elect The Dead Symphony world tour, which was an amazing experience. I shared my sampled recording of ORCA with them, and together we made plans for the live performance and recording to fully bring the work to life and share and distribute it to as many people as possible.
We have put together many different ways for fans to get involved and be a part of ORCA from the ground up, all of which are outlined in this Kickstarter campaign. We tried to think of ways to give you every bit of music possible, and interactive, personalized experiences for those who can attend the show on October 28th, and for those who can't. Our goal is $25,000.00, which is the minimal cost for the recording. Any additional funds will be used to cover the expenses of mixing, mastering and promotion. We will keep you updated with news and progress so you are able to see what we do as this project grows.
Please check it out and I hope to share this journey for ORCA with you all. Thank you for the support.
Peace,
Serj
**Any and all questions can be directed to Orca@serjicalstrike.com
**WE JUST FINALIZED THE T-SHIRT DESIGN - CHECK IT OUT BELOW**
Risks and challenges
Having already worked with the Das Karussell Orchestra at the Brucknerhaus, I feel confident that they are the perfect orchestra for me to record ORCA with. I have heard other classical albums made with this orchestra that have been recorded at Brucknerhaus and they sound stellar. We have taken all the appropriate measures to insure that the recording equipment and engineers used are consistent with achieving a recording of the same highest quality. Every recording session has it's list of challenges, but we've made all the necessary arrangements to minimize any bumps in the road. This will be a challenge, but a very manageable one that I feel very confident will be handled with the utmost level of professionalism.
The goal fund of $25,000 will cover the necessary recording costs of the actual session itself, but nothing else. From a risk/challenge perspective, this is our biggest one. Mixing and mastering will need to commence thereafter, and usually there are considerable funds that are required to make that happen. Fortunately, I have my own studio that will be mixing and mastering in, so I will be able to effectively manage costs associated with this process. Also, I feel very confident in my abilities to effectively mix and master the album as I have had plenty of experience in my studio. In fact, I just mixed my most recent full length rock album 'Harakiri', that has received great reviews for it's audio quality. Additionally, I will be working with the same engineer who helped mix my previous live album recorded with an orchestra, "The Elect The Dead Symphony". We have plans to mix and master the album upon our return from Europe after this concert on October 28, and the timeline that we have mapped out to complete the mixing is very manageable.
We are also working towards finding a well respected classical music label partner to up with for the official release of ORCA. This has been an ongoing process that is showing much promise. Since no official agreement has yet been made, there also exists a challenge here with respect to timeline of official release date of ORCA. However, I have taken this into consideration and have allotted for the appropriate tentative release date of June 2013 for the physical cd of ORCA to be delivered. If no agreement can be reached, I have a backup plan. Since I do have my own record label in Serjical Strike Records, I would self release ORCA myself. This is also a very manageable challenge as I do have years of experience releasing records and have the ability to produce and release my own music as physical products.
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Funding period
- (22 days)