Funded £3,106
Campaign: Epic opera for the modern world
I worked with the pinchpunch team to run a crowdfunding campaign alongside more traditional sources of arts funding, in support of their creation of a brand-new epic opera rooted in a rare Armenian folktale.
Offered an exciting opportunity to showcase their work at the Arcola’s Grimeborn season, the team had a limited amount of time to raise the funds they needed to produce a work that lived up to their own high standards. A combination of grant funding and crowdfunding proved to be the solution.
Jo wrote my crowdfunding campaign after gathering all the info she could about our project. It was wonderful to have her perspective on both funding and marketing. The crowdfund itself worked as its own form of advertising for the project, and resulted in a live performance on the BBC, and a residency at Snape Maltings, in addition to the opera festival for which we were fundraising. Jo helped me to set realistic goals, and kept in touch throughout the process. It was a lot of work, and I couldn’t have achieved such successful results without her.
Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian
Since funding:
A successful R&D and premiere performance was held at the Arcola Theatre; 1000 Songs also received its broadcast premiere on the drive-time show In Tune on BBC Radio 3. Since establishing pinchpunch, Cevanne has written for a new opera company Hera, with a libretto by playwright Sabrina Mahfouz, and for the Birmingham Royal Ballet, which is set to tour again in 2020. She has also written for the Royal Opera House R&D programme with librettist Jessica Walker, testing new material for a gameshow based on the historic witch hunts.