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Community Corner

Crowd-Funding As a Birthday Gift? That's What This Local Musician Did!

Marci Geller believes that “we should all do things that terrify us as often as possible.” A “birthday-avoider” having not publically celebrated since she turned 18, she decided to face her fear and to take the opportunity to celebrate big this year. The local artist launched a crowd-funding campaign on her birthday to raise funds for the production and release of her next CD. She titled the campaign “Leap of Faith” and the video tells a quirky story to engage potential backers. Since the launch on April 11th, the campaign has reached 43% and continues to climb.

 Geller, who is a primarily piano-based contemporary singer-songwriter from Stony Brook, New York, has been tearing up the country since the release of her last CD Open Book. The CD garnered airplay on radio stations across the country -- having debuted at #33 on the Folk DJ Chart and was included in the “Top 100 Albums 2012” on the Roots Music Report-Folk chart.  She was also a formal showcase artist at the 2014 & 2013 North East Regional Folk Alliance (NERFA)-1 Day, named one of five finalists in the CT Folk Festival Song Competition and was a main-stage artist for the 2014 South Florida Folk Festival, and 2013 Huntington Folk Festival.

Named an “Editor’s Choice” in 2010 as one of its favorite songwriters of the last decade by Independent Songwriter Magazine, Geller has performed on Live with Regis, Good Day NY and Fox Morning Show, and her music can be heard in soundtracks on MTV, VH-1, PBS, ABC Family, A&E, Discovery channel, USA Network and others. She also toured for two years as the support act and back-up vocalist for Ritchie Blackmore’s band, Blackmore’s Night.

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 The songwriter continues to challenge herself by participating in groups like “The Fearless Songwriter Challenge,” where members are given a prompt and expected to write a song a day for seven consecutive days and then post ruff recordings of them by midnight. She has also been attending the “Jack Hardy Songwriter’s Exchange” since 2011. The group has been meeting in Manhattan for over 35 years and continues to follow the credo of it’s founder “Shut up and sing the song.” You come armed with the song you finished that week and sing it in an open circle forum without any introduction or explanations and then wait for the participants to give feedback be it positive or negative.

Christine Lavin is quoted saying  “Marci Geller was a revelation! She's wonderful!" "I love what you do!"  While WFDU radio host Ron Olesko said of a recent performance “You were spectacular!”

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 With just 16 days to go until the campaign ends, the songwriter appears remarkably calm. “Facing fear is all about growth and coming out the other end realizing that I am stronger than I thought I was. It’s ironic that someone like myself who is so comfortable on the stage has a very hard time when attention is put on me outside my music life,” confesses Geller.  The attention is on, as is the pressure to reach her goal. Geller chose the “All or nothing” platform of Kickstarter which means, if her $8000.00 goal isn’t met within the 30 day time frame, she loses it all. Ever the optimist, Geller reveals, “I have complete faith that I am meant to make music. The money is going to come from somewhere and I believe that this campaign is going to be the start of many good moments to come.” To watch the singer’s video and learn more about the campaign go to: www.MarciGeller.com/Kickstarter <


<https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1093024694/leap-of-faith-time-for-the-next-cd


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