New Mass for Historic Cathedral (Master's Degree)

TL;DR I'm composing a 30 minute Mass setting for my master's degree that will be recorded and made into a mini-documentary. Therefore, in order to properly develop this project in relation to my cost of living, cost of my degree, and cost of remaining in the EU to oversee the final performance, I am asking for your support.

Hello everyone,

My name is Brendan Moir, and I'm an American composer, writer, and all around performer who came to Limerick, Ireland in the hopes of honing my artistic sensibilities. I would like to share with you an exciting project that I've been working on that I believe will not only help shine a light on the city that I've been staying in, but will also breathe some new, well-needed life into the church canon.

Here's the scoop: I'm composing a brand new, traditional Mass setting for one of the oldest cathedrals in Ireland, St. Mary's Cathedral for my Master's degree in Music Composition. It's going to be a unique blend of harmonies/ideas/themes that will stand out from earlier church music, but will also be manageable to our professional and volunteer choir members. To put this in more poetic terms, this Mass is meant to evoke the power of God in relation to ourselves; a power so vast and frightening that we can hardly comprehend it, and yet, it is through that power that we are able to experience His abundant mercy. If you would like to hear some of what I've already written, you can click this link and hear a demo of the first movement of the Mass: Introit & Kyrie.

This piece will be performed/recorded around the later end of June/July and turned into a Mini-Documentary by the end of September. It will be for Organ & SATB choir and will be roughly about 30 minutes in length with the exclusion of the "Credo," since--for this particular performance--it is not part of the Anglican tradition.

Our awesome organist, Peter Barley, will be lending his skills to the performance, and we will be teaming up with members from the Ancór Chamber Choir and early music group Sagittarius to present this masterpiece, which I've only half tongue-in-cheek-ly named the "Mass of Reverence."

Not only will this be a great musical event, but I believe that it will be an invaluable educational experience to students here at the Limerick School of Music, University of Limerick, Mary Immaculate College, and (ultimately) many students around the world. Truth be told, my end goal is to have this Mass inspire participants and audience members alike to further pursue their artistic passions, and to have St. Mary's stand as a testament to them that the church is not dead, and that it's willing to nurture and host new and creative talent.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been working tirelessly on portions of the Mass, and upon completion, have given those portions over to Peter Barley. Due to his miraculous sight reading abilities, we've been able to practice said portions with the choir, and I can already tell you that it's shaping up quite nicely.

Now on to the uncomfortable part... the price tag (insert [more] scary organ music).

You see, I'm doing most of this project completely out of pocket, and the recording gear that I brought with me from the states isn't going to be enough. I've also been so focused on my music making that I haven't been able to get funding from anywhere else in Limerick, and what attempts I have had at applying for funding have been shot down, saying that since I'm not an Irish citizen, they can't support me.

The ask is two fold: part of it is for the production/development and equipment costs of this demo/mini-documentary, and the other is for the commissioning/performance of the work in relation to my cost of living and cost of my degree ($16,000). There are also some extra costs related to transportation, developmental processes, and performer compensation that will/already have inevitably risen up from this venture, but those are more negligible compared to the aforementioned costs.

All in all, taking into consideration the response to my Kickstater campaign, I'm trying to keep my expectations reasonable by asking only for $2,500. If all my dreams came true and money wasn't so hard to come by, it would be wonderful if we managed to hit $5,000+ so that I could at least offset my living expenses and some of my student debt, but I know that is asking a lot of people over the internet. Realistically, I'd be grateful for any sort of help.

If you can help out, I'd greatly appreciate it, and if you can't, thank you for reading to the end of this long-winded explanation. In either case, go ahead and share this fundraiser with other people who are tired of hearing stereotypical church music that lacks the fear of God in its chords.

Thank you, and please, have a lovely rest of your day.

-Brendan Moir