Kickstart OurHeart: Canto De La Monarca

posted in: Features • Latin

Kickstarter is home to music projects of every variety: some bite off more than they can chew, some come off as desperate charity cases and a few of them are surprisingly poignant. Canto de la Monarca, by Ana Cervantes, falls into the last category. She’s taken it upon herself to commission a project celebrating both historical and mythical Mexican women”for example, Juana Inés de la Cruz, a self taught scholar was an early defender of a woman’s right to education as well as a prominent seventeenth century author”through a series of solo piano pieces.

Ana will be working with seventeen composers from six countries”Mexico, Spain, Brazil, Colombia, England and the US”with the goal of producing a double CD, as well as touring with concerts and educational activities. Ana’s Kickstarter goal is $10,000, which pales compared to the total $75,000 necessary to launch this campaign.

This project is a truly massive undertaking. Ana has been gathering funding since early 2009, not to mention the work she’s put in designing and supervising the venture, contacting composers and booking the concerts for 2011-2012. With a Mexican father and a Nebraskan mother, her understanding of cultural barriers and the importance of communicating through them is deeply embedded. Also, her previous commissioning project really speaks to her ability and commitment. Rumor de Páramo, or Murmurs From The Wasteland, was a smash success. It was a musical tribute to legendary twentieth century Mexican author and photographer Juan Rulfo, organized basically in the same manner that Canto de la Monarca will be. Enough about Ana, though, we’ll let her introduce herself with this video.

We have to applaud her initiative. It takes a lot of guts to commit to a project of this magnitude, and besides, we think it’s pretty great that each of the seventeen composers are earning $2,000 for their hard work. If you feel the same, then help Ana with some concrete support.