Gillian Grassie – Singer Songwriter Harpist

West Coast Adventures

// May 14th, 2011 // No Comments » // Cool Stuff, Music, News, Performances, Press, Travel

It’s a cloudy, early morning in San Francisco, and I’m sitting in the kitchen with the day’s first cup of coffee, listening to a quiet house.

morning run by the golden gate bridge

I’ve been staying with some friends in Outer Richmond this past week to rehearse with the ESL Folk Project in preparation for our tour in South America. I met Matt, Brendan, & Jordan last summer in Tomsk where we began our first tour, bringing a special program using American Folk music as a cultural supplement for students learning English in Russia. The U.S. State Department loved the project so much, they decided to fund us again for a month-long tour in Colombia, Peru, & Ecuador. It’s the first time that we’ve all been together since Ufa last summer & the reunion has been sweet indeed. Tomorrow morning we’ll catch an early flight to Bogata the adventure begins! We expect to be doing some blogging updates from the road, but I don’t know how regular our internet access will be, so I wanted to write a little post sharing some of the highlights of my past couple weeks in California.

Oh, hey there, Hollywood

I flew to Los Angeles on April 29th to visit my dear friend Rosy, who had generously offered to host a house concert for me. We spent the weekend cooking & then celebrated May Day with music, a feast featuring dishes from all the countries I’ll be visiting on the ESL Folk tour, & over a hundred guests.

That there's 70lbs of onions. I cried.

On Monday, fellow Fellow Ted & I visited the Caltech campus to talk about our recent experiences as Thomas J. Watson Fellows on a panel for prospective applicants. Here’s hoping one of their many intriguing proposal ideas gets funded next year! We drove down to San Diego & spent a couple days learning ridiculous covers on harp & guitar, playing them for dear distant friends on Skype, & sampling the finest fish taco stands in the city. Ted also treated me with a breakfast of matzo brie, which is kind of like Jewish French toast (and totally delicious).

Ted! You made Matzo Brie!

I took the train up from SD back to LA (and, as always when traveling public transit with my harp, talked to lots of curious strangers) & then caught a rideshare to San Francisco with a woman who managed to fit me, my harp (in flight crate), & a young australian woman fresh from the airport into her Prius! I was dropped off in the Lower Pacific Heights neighborhood just in time to play another house concert for a super fun audience featuring a surprising number of AmeriCorps volunteers. By midnight, I’d made my weary way to Outer Richmond where the ESL Folk Project has been living & rehearsing this past week.

Brendan, Matt, & Jordan

We’ve been working hard, logging several 9 hour days of solid rehearsal, learning lots of new material & lesson plans for the students we are *super* excited to meet in Peru, Colombia, & Ecuador. This time around, the U.S. State Department is organizing several large public concerts in addition to our schedule with the schools, so we’ve put together an entirely new program! Some of my favorites to learn have been John Henry, Red Clay Halo, Old Joe Clark, In the Pines, & Casey Jones.

lots of lyrics-learning...

In our spare time, we’ve managed to share several delicious meals (Jordan’s a wizard with a cast iron skillet) & visit the Sutro Baths, a 19th Century swimming facility that now lies in ruins on the Pacific Coast, not far from the house where we’ve been staying. When not making a hootenanny in the living room with the guys, I’ve also been learning cover song requests from a kickstarter campaign for my next solo album, locking myself in the (acoustically pleasing & quiet) bathroom to make iMovie recordings, & posting them on YouTube. One of the covers, a version of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Theme on harp, was picked up by the online gaming community & went viral, making this one of the most viewed bathrooms in San Francisco! Big love & thanks to Reddit.com, RipTen.com, Kotaku.com, The Elder Scrolls facebook & twitter feeds, bit-tech.net, & thousands of individuals for spreading the video like wildfire. I stayed up late last night learning the Ultima Online Theme (which was one of the earliest follow-up requests from Reddit.com) & posted it on YouTube this morning as a gesture of my deep gratitude for the outpouring of support that’s come from the gaming community over the past few days.

over 42,000 people have seen this bathroom!

We’ve already started getting some press coverage in South America, like this article: Ramblin’ Across the Andes.. Time to get back to packing – looking forward to sharing our stories from the road!

Much love,
-Gillian

sorry, Pickles, you can't come...

P.S. My next concerts in the U.S. will be on Monday, June 13th at the Rockwood Music Hall in NYC & Saturday, June 18th at the Tin Angel in Philadelphia. The Tin Angel shows have been selling out, so if you’re interested in coming, be sure to reserve your tickets in advance!

$12k goal reached & a viral YouTube cover

// May 12th, 2011 // No Comments » // Cool Stuff, Music, News, Press

What an amazing two weeks this has been.

On May 1st, the kickstarter campaign passed its $10,000 goal, covering the costs of professional radio promotion when The Hinter Haus is released. Yesterday, you exceeded expectations again by pushing me over the $12,000 mark & additionally securing a publicist! If we reach $15,000 by the close of funding at 11 PM EST on May 14th, I’ve promised to run pressings of the album in both CD & Vinyl format.

There are now 124 unbelievably generous & amazing backers involved in this project who are living in the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Senegal, China, France, Ireland, Italy, Sri Lanka, & Australia! It’s incredibly exciting to me that these songs, which were conceived during a time of international travel & exploration, are now receiving support from people in so many parts of the world.

I started posting the YouTube cover requests that have come through on the campaign this week. One of them – an adaptation of The Elder Scrolls Morrowind Theme – has gone viral with over 18,000 hits in its first day! There is a new, soft, warm place in my heart reserved for the RPG community. Thanks to Mike, Reddit.com, RipTen.com, & the Elder Scrolls fb & twitter pages for passing the video around!

Please continue sharing this project with your friends by posting the kickstarter link on your facebook wall, twitter feed, blog, or e-mail list. If you’ve already done this & haven’t yet received your copy of “Borrowed or Begged,” please just give me a heads up on facebook, twitter, or at gillian [at] gilliangrassie.com & I’ll send you the download link.

As excited as I am by the ambitious figure we’ve managed to raise together, it’s important to remember that this campaign is not only about fundraising, but also reaching new listeners. Every friend you share this with is another potential fan, which is every bit as valuable to me as each dollar contributed to this project.

It is thrilling (and a little overwhelming) to have had such a positive response to this record so quickly.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Love,
Gillian

Official Kickstarter Launch!

// April 15th, 2011 // 1 Comment » // Cool Stuff, Music, News

and so it begins… One month to raise 8k for a new album. Spread the word, share your wealth. I can’t thank you enough.

Early Friday morning, I launched an official Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the recording of a new album, with the bold goal to raise $8,000 for the project in one month. Within the first 24 hours, the project reached over $3,000 in pledges. As of today, the campaign has received support from 44 amazing & generous backers from the United States, Canada, Ireland, Switzerland, and China, exceeding the $8,000 goal in the first four days at $8214 & counting. There are still 25 days left before the May 14th fundraising deadline to get involved in the project.

What is a Kickstarter Campaign, you may ask?

Kickstarter.com is a website that facilitates “crowdfunding,” a newfangled term that is an evolving business model where creative projects are financed collectively with small individual donations from an artist’s fanbase & supporters. You could think of it as highly organized pre-ordering – in exchange for your pledge of $20, I will send you a signed, advance copy of the physical CD once the recording process is finished, & together, we pool enough money for me to see the project through to its completion. But pre-ordering the CD is just one way you can get involved in this campaign. I’ve put together a special collection of services & goods for those who agree to back the project at donation levels ranging from $1 to $5000. These “incentives” include everything from exclusive digital downloads to limited edition handstitched lyric books, private houseconcerts, T-Shirts, & song cover requests performed on YouTube. I’ve tried to put together rewards that offer something for everyone in terms of interest & financial ability.

These campaigns work best when the cost of the project is distributed among many, many backers, so even if you can’t afford to support this project financially, I’m counting on your help spreading the word about this campaign to as many people as possible. E-mail some friends about this project, repost the video on your facebook wall or twitter feed, share the link in your blog… If you do any of these incredibly important things, I’ll send you an exclusive download of an unreleased song that only supporters of this project will have access to. Just get in touch with me via e-mail at gillian@gilliangrassie.com , let me know you helped spread the word, & I’ll send you the download link. More than just a fundraising campaign, this Kickstarter is a wonderful opportunity to help get the word out about my music & reach new listeners, so please do forward the video to as many people as you think might be interested.

Much love,
Gillian

…Like in the Moving Pictures!

// February 12th, 2011 // No Comments » // Cool Stuff, Music, News, Performances, Press

Video cameras are cruel and unforgiving creatures, but I’ve braved the cyclops on a few occasions in the past few weeks and done a bit of filming. Since it’ll likely be a few more weeks of editing before anything gets posted online, I thought I’d share some behind-the-scenes still photographs from the shoots with you.

I spent the last weekend of January in NYC working with Jazeel Gayle on a music video for Silken String. We built an enormous tent out of satin ribbon, kind of like a may pole sans the phallic fertility symbol. In case you were wondering what 50 yards worth of ribbon looks like, this is it:

I don’t want give too much away before the video comes out, but here are a couple other images from the shoot:

The other shoot I did was a taping for a new NBC Philadelphia series called Inside the Music Box. Gabriel Antonini invited me to come by the NBC Philadelphia studios, play a couple songs and give an interview. Filming always makes me nervous, but I really had a blast working with these guys.

I’ll let you know when the final products are posted online and ready for prime time.

P.S. Notice anything different? I’ve started playing standing up!

Masterclass & Concert in Chicago at Northwestern

// November 10th, 2010 // No Comments » // Cool Stuff, Music, Performances, Travel

I’m thrilled to announce that a concert and masterclass has been added to the tour schedule for Chicago this Sunday! I’ll be giving a workshop on non-traditional uses of the harp for the local American Harp Society at Northwestern University, followed by a concert. Both are open to the public at sliding-scale prices.

Sunday, November 14th
Northwestern University
Regenstein Hall of Music
60 Arts Circle Drive
Evanston, IL
Room 117
5 PM

$25 participant fee
$10 auditor’s fee ($5 student/low income auditor’s fee)