Note: first published in 2015 – see update at end
You may have heard, vaguely, of crowdfunding, but wondered how it actually worked. Here’s your chance to find out, and also read about a worthy project. Organist David Dewar is trying to fund the first year of a research degree at Bristol University, using Hubbub. Hubbub is a crowdfunding platform set up to help people raise money for projects in education and non-profit organisations. It makes it easy to put just a few pounds behind something you think is worthwhile. David’s research is into the music and influences of Eric Thiman – a twentieth century composer neglected by the mainstream, but who needs little introduction to most organists. Many of us will have encountered his piano pieces in our childhood. His prolific output of pieces for organists at all levels has been recommended to me by several teachers as ideal sight reading practice, and I’ve played the organ at City Temple where he was organist, on several occasions. (A bit neglected now, but still a fine instrument.) I suspect Thiman deserves more though, than to be remembered as a composer of useful stuff for students, and I look forward to what David finds out from a new archive of Thiman’s work which has recently been made available – he will be blogging his research progress. See what you think.
David says
I think there are a number of composers – particularly those active in church music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries – who are nowadays unjustly neglected. Certainly those pieces of Thiman’s which I have seen and played or conducted are of real worth. The collection being set up has, at the last count, around 850 pieces in it. So there is already plenteous material for research and some sort of fresh evaluation.
Update August 2015: David tells me his crowdfunding didn’t reach the target, but he is deeply appreciative of everyone’s support and commitment, and he is determined, with the funding he has, to start the research on a part-time basis.
