First Professional Album
Donation protected
This project has been incredibly fulfilling thus far! I am so grateful for your support, and continue to work each day toward the release in April 2017!! I can't wait to share my music with you!!
1. BUDGET SPREADSHEET! (*always subject to change, but this is the progress)
2. My intention with each donation:
I will do my best to honor the music and do my very best to ensure that every person donating receives the album for FREE! That may be via an iTunes link, on a USB port, or through other links. (I will likely not print hard copies, as they are steadily nearing obsoletion.)
I will be more grateful for your help than I could say, even for one dollar! That is one dollar that Matt and I simply cannot make without your help. This is not easy for me to ask. I do not take it lightly.
3. Why am I asking?
The NYC-Artist Crisis
My incredible husband of three years, Matthew Whitfield, and I are both actors and performers here in the city. We each work over 50 hours a week, and are only paid for ONE THIRD of that work. Not every one knows, but it is considered completely acceptable for theaters NOT to pay their actors for their services. We both pay off our credit cards every single month. We have no debt accept for our student loans. We were A-students through college and continue to be top employees in our service jobs: I work six and Matt works three. And still, we are finding ourselves continually unable to make a living as artists in New York City.
We come from extremely loving and helpful families, but we are self-funded. This is a time of stress and discouragement for us. We have so much skill, talent, and specialization in the career path we have both chosen, yet our passions are becoming a liability to our financial health. This is America: the land where you can work so hard and make a living at what you love, right?
We work so very hard. We are joined together in love and responsibility with our money. Yet we cannot see a future in the arts at the rate we are going, and it breaks our hearts.
4. Where Did the Music Begin:
I was raised on a ranch in Montana, just beneath the Snowy Mountains, where my parents brought us 4 kids up in an amateur Bluegrass family band,–a-pickin’ and a-grinnin’ for minstrel shows, weddings, town picnics, and Sunday services. My younger sister, Kendra Jo, and I have both moved to New York City, where we continue the tradition as The Brook Sisters. Kendra Jo has also founded an all-women Bluegrass band– The Snowy Mountain Sisters–in which I am the lead guitarist.
From the subway platform to music festivals
to stages of NYC , we bring the music of our roots to life every day!
Thank you so much for reading and for your support! I am deeply, deeply grateful.
1. BUDGET SPREADSHEET! (*always subject to change, but this is the progress)
2. My intention with each donation:
I will do my best to honor the music and do my very best to ensure that every person donating receives the album for FREE! That may be via an iTunes link, on a USB port, or through other links. (I will likely not print hard copies, as they are steadily nearing obsoletion.)
I will be more grateful for your help than I could say, even for one dollar! That is one dollar that Matt and I simply cannot make without your help. This is not easy for me to ask. I do not take it lightly.
3. Why am I asking?
The NYC-Artist Crisis
My incredible husband of three years, Matthew Whitfield, and I are both actors and performers here in the city. We each work over 50 hours a week, and are only paid for ONE THIRD of that work. Not every one knows, but it is considered completely acceptable for theaters NOT to pay their actors for their services. We both pay off our credit cards every single month. We have no debt accept for our student loans. We were A-students through college and continue to be top employees in our service jobs: I work six and Matt works three. And still, we are finding ourselves continually unable to make a living as artists in New York City.
We come from extremely loving and helpful families, but we are self-funded. This is a time of stress and discouragement for us. We have so much skill, talent, and specialization in the career path we have both chosen, yet our passions are becoming a liability to our financial health. This is America: the land where you can work so hard and make a living at what you love, right?
We work so very hard. We are joined together in love and responsibility with our money. Yet we cannot see a future in the arts at the rate we are going, and it breaks our hearts.
4. Where Did the Music Begin:
I was raised on a ranch in Montana, just beneath the Snowy Mountains, where my parents brought us 4 kids up in an amateur Bluegrass family band,–a-pickin’ and a-grinnin’ for minstrel shows, weddings, town picnics, and Sunday services. My younger sister, Kendra Jo, and I have both moved to New York City, where we continue the tradition as The Brook Sisters. Kendra Jo has also founded an all-women Bluegrass band– The Snowy Mountain Sisters–in which I am the lead guitarist.
From the subway platform to music festivals
to stages of NYC , we bring the music of our roots to life every day!
Thank you so much for reading and for your support! I am deeply, deeply grateful.
Organizer
Brittany Brook
Organizer
New York, NY
