Beth Custer Ensemble going to Georgia!!!

[Dina Maccabee]

(Dear Dina Maccabee heads -- this important message is brought to you by Beth Custer Ensemble member David James -- but I certainly couldn't have put it better! - dm)

Finally!!! 

David James here with great news and an appeal.

After a couple of years of attempts, promises, no small amount of translating, heartache, cajoling, grant writing, and much more, the Beth Custer Ensemble are, in fact, going to the Tbilisi International Film Festival, where we will perform Beth's original score for the Soviet-era Georgian silent comedy, My Grandmother, as the film is shown. 

Finally!!! 

 

We leave San Francisco on December 4 and return home on December 12.

This is an huge achievement for Beth, an honor for the band, and sure to be an adventure for all of us, as we'll be traveling to a country that has a language and alphabet like no other (although, luckily for us? most Georgians do speak and read Russian as well); we'll be traveling by train from one end of the country to the other (our second show is in Batumi, which is on the Black Sea and maddeningly close to Turkey); and we'll get to see/hear people's response(s) to this film's satirical take on Soviet bureaucracy as it was depicted in 1929 by their forebears.

Finally!!!

  

This is somewhat surreal, the idea of taking this movie back to the land in which it was made, but with a new score written by an American woman, performed by an American band made up of, well, us!! I mean, have you seen us? Lately? 

Anyway, we're finally!!! able to make this trip because Beth got a grant that covers the band's flights, but she has this strange notion that she should also pay the band. Peculiar, sure, but noble, and the fact is, she's asking us to ask YOU to help her pay the band for our 8-day stay. So here I am, asking you to consider donating to the Beth Custer Ensemble. 

 

How can you do that? Good question! If you click the link below, you'll be taken to Kickstarter.com, a funding platform for creative projects, through which you can make a donation to this particular project. Upon arrival at the BCE page, you'll see that there are gifts to be had at certain donation levels, from CDs and DVDs of 

Beth's music to the Beth Custer Ensemble playing at your house, or something like that. 

  Here's the link:  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/845972859/beth-custer-ensemble-tours-republic-of-georgia-in-0

  

  If you can't make a donation, well, wish us luck and safety.

  Thanks, and stay warm.

   DJ  + DM