New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Pianist Marie-Luise Hinrichs and her manager Orlando Romulo Sanchez recently launched a new Indiegogo campaign to raise €5,000 for the development and production of a new music CD featuring a solo-piano version of J.S. Bach's "Cello Suite #1" plus a collection of Marie-Luise's own new original compositions inspired by and dedicated to animals.
Bach's Cello Suite #1 is the most famous composition ever written for cello (Yo Yo Ma's rendition is part of popular culture). The piece is rarely ever heard on the piano. But when her manager gave her the sheet music as a gift, Marie-Luise enjoyed the music so much that she wanted to share her enthusiasm with the world through a recording of a solo piano version.
Marie-Luise's collection of newly composed animal-songs, which will be featured on the same CD, will be entitled "Tierbilder", which means "Animal Pictures" in German. The animal songs will celebrate animal life, similar to the musical animal characterizations in Sergei Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf." Hinrichs has a love of animals and even organized and performed a benefit concert for an animal shelter, through which she raised and donated almost €400 to the animal shelter. If her new CD project is successfully funded, there is a possibility it will open her up to partnering with even more animal welfare organizations.
Marie-Luise's sister, Marianne Levien, a painter, will paint pictures of each of the animals described by Hinrichs' music. These paintings will be featured in the CD booklet, if the project is successfully funded.
It is a very unusual project, but much of Marie-Luise's success as a recording artist has come from unusual projects. For example, her piano arrangements of monodies by German abbess Hildegard Von Bingen (1098-1179) spent many weeks in the European classical music charts in 2011, and one music journalist raved that "Hinrichs has erected a signpost pointing piano music in a new direction." Her interpretations of keyboard sonatas by Spanish composer Padre Antonio Soler (1729-1783) are considered by some to be among the best ever recorded. Marie-Luise single-handedly transcribed the first ever solo piano version of "Stabat Mater" by
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736), a 40-minute masterpiece originally written for voice, strings, and organ. Hinrichs is also a well-respected interpreter of the music of J.S. Bach.
During the last 10 years, starting around the time she began studying the life and music of Hildegard Von Bingen, Marie-Luise Hinrichs has felt increasingly inspired to compose her own music, including the animal songs, which are some of her most recent.
"The spiritual aspect of music is the driving force behind Hinrichs' artistry," says Sanchez. "It is something that she does not want to go without, and it has been her inspiration all throughout her career. All of her music is infused with a feeling of love and goodwill toward the listener and toward the world."
Five pledge levels for the fundraiser are available from €15 to €50 with rewards associated with each level.
€15 = MP3 download of the completed record album
€20 = The above reward, plus a hard copy of the CD delivered through the mail.
€30 = The above rewards, plus a photocopy of one of Marie-Luise's hand-written compositions.
€40 = The above rewards, plus an MP3 download of the outtakes from the studio recording session (retakes, mistakes, and discussions that take place during the recording session, which will not end up on the finalized CD)
€50 = The above rewards, plus access to view a home-video recording of a house concert of the music from the CD, played by Marie-Luise Hinrichs in her home studio.
For more information about the campaign and pledging, and to hear some samples of Marie-Luise Hinrichs' past recordings, visit the Indiegogo campaign here:
About Marie-Luise Hinrichs
At the age of seven, Marie-Luise Hinrichs took her first piano lessons; by the time she was fourteen, her career was already underway with a public performance of Mozart's C Major Concerto, K467. In the course of her studies at the conservatories of Hamburg, Essen and Cologne, Hinrichs went on perfecting her truly unique piano touch - that sensitive, mellow tone which has continually placed her performances in a class of their own, then as now.
"What a great blessing to have the chance to express oneself through music", as German pianist Marie-Luise Hinrichs says. Released by the labels EMI and CPO, her outstanding recordings of the sonatas of Padre Antonio Soler - a hitherto neglected composer - established her international renown.
Reviewers in FonoForum magazine and in the dailies Le Figaro (Paris) and FAZ (Frankfurt) have repeatedly pointed out Hinrichs' songlike, balanced timbre, nuanced sensitivity and utter stylistic assurance.
