South Florida Composer Looks to Kickstarter to Fund Symphony Recording

It's not often you browse Kickstarter's tech-heavy website and see a composer trying to raise funds to record an original symphony. That's exactly how the founder and Executive Artistic Director of SoBe Institute of the Arts (SoBe Arts) hopes to make Symphony No. 4 (Biodiversity) a reality. Carson Kievman is stepping out of the box and engaging a new audience to become a part of his recently completed one-hour symphony.

Symphony No. 4 (Biodiversity) is a four-movement reflection on biodiversity and the plight of our worldwide ecosystems: Glaciers (Rivers of Ice), The Great Swamp, Starving Angels, The Year of the Reef.

When the recording project is completed, all proceeds from album sales will enable children from disadvantaged families to participate in arts education programs, and to provide free and low-cost professional concerts and productions for our community.

The symphony will be recorded by the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra (NPRSO) under the baton of distinguished conductor Delta David Gier during the Winter/Spring of 2014, with release of a CD and Digital distribution during the fall of 2014. A previous Kievman/Gier collaboration resulted in an immensely successful recording and CD release of Kievman's Symphony No. 2(42) on New Albion Records.

The funds raised through the crowd sourced campaign will be used for the recording orchestra, the conductor, as well as to pay for associated costs. All donations are tax-deductible.

About Carson Kievman

For nearly 40 years, Carson Kievman has been creating music and theater works in performing arts centers and festivals around the world. Kievman has written nine full-length operas, five symphonies, numerous other music-theater pieces and orchestral works and a variety of chamber ensembles and multimedia compositions.

Kievman has been Composer and/or Director-in-Residence for the Tanglewood Music Festival, The New York Shakespeare Festival, the Eugene O'Neill Opera/Music-Theater Conference, Florida Philharmonic Orchestra and the Darmstadt Summer Music Festival, among others. He has received commissions and awards for his work from the prestigious Donaueschingen Festival, The National Endowment for the Arts, the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, the American Music Center, Tanglewood, Alte Stiftung Boswil, BMI, Gaudeamus Music Week, I.S.C.M, Janet A. Hooker Charitable Trust, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard, the Pennsylvania Ballet Theater, the Darmstadt Ferienkürse fur NeueMusik, 4th International Composer's Festival Zurich, the American Opera Theater, the Rockefeller Foundation and New York's Joseph Papp Public Theater.

His works have been performed worldwide including several international tours of his multimedia production Multinationals & the Heavens, and a critically acclaimed retrospective of his music-theater works at the Nationaltheater Mannheim (Germany). His Symphony No. 2(42),commissioned by James Judd and the Florida Philharmonic, was recorded by the Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra-Katowice and the Polish Radio Choir of Krakow and released by New Albion Records in 1996 to universal acclaim and solidified Kievman's place among the finest living composers. Other CD projects include The Temporary and Tentative Extended Piano, David Arden pianist, released in 2000 on CRI Records and Symphony No. 3 (Hurricane) conducted by Delta David Gier, released in 2002 on Mystery Park Arts Records. His work Henry Eight's Harvest was commissioned for the opening night concert of the 2000 European Expo on Nature & Technology and premiere in Hanover, Germany. Dear John, the first movement from his Chamber Symphony No. 1(628), was commissioned in 2004 for the Collegiate Chamber Orchestra at the oldest school in America, founded in 1628. His works have been performed in over 36 countries around the world.

Born in Los Angeles, California, Carson Kievman holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University and an MFA from California Institute of the Arts, where he studied with the distinguished composer Earle Brown. He is the founder and Executive Artistic Director of SoBe Institute of the Arts, a world-class independent non-profit organization which provides high-level arts instruction to community and professionals alike, as well as unique and compelling concerts and productions at its historic facility in the CANDO district of Miami Beach.

About SoBe Institute of the Arts

SoBe Institute of the Arts, a nonprofit organization, promotes excellence, creativity, and accessibility of the arts through performance events and arts instruction of the highest quality, in music and related artistic disciplines. Since its founding eight years ago, SoBe Arts has established a unique arts complex in the historic Carl Fisher Clubhouse and adjoining Little Stage Theater, located in a park-like setting between the Miami Beach Botanical Gardens and the Miami City Ballet.

SoBe Arts 2013/14 Season is made possible by the generous support of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners, the Miami Beach Cultural Arts Council and the City of Miami Beach, the Horowitz Family Foundation, the Audrey Love Charitable Foundation, the Miami Beach Arts Trust (MB Arts Gala), the Collins Park Neighborhood Association, the Perry South Beach, Sylvano Restaurant, Laurent-Perrier, The Café at Books & Books as well as individual donors and volunteers.

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