Tenner for a Tenor Campaign

On Tuesday we launched our exciting new crowd-funding campaign Tenner for a Tenor. The aim of the campaign is to fund a new commission by Jonathan Dove for tenor Mark Padmore and Britten Sinfonia. We hope this model of funding new commissions will inspire people who have never thought of donating to contribute as we are only asking for donations of £10!

Working with Carly Murphy-Merrydew (design concept) and the guys from Wash Media (film) the promotion of the campaign compares items which cost £10 (which doesn’t get you much these days) and includes sausages, train tickets, wine and flowers! Take a look at the short film which captures the fun and quirky nature we’ve taken with promoting Tenner for a Tenor.

Launch events took place at our At Lunch concerts in Cambridge on Tuesday and London on Wednesday and tomorrow (Friday) we’ll be launching the scheme in Norwich. We’ve also created a giant postbox where people can post their donations at concerts but you can also donate online and via SMS text message.

So far we have had over 50 donations and the scheme is generating press and viral interest for its innovative way of encouraging philanthropy in the arts. Donors will have their name acknowledged in the score of the new work and will also get behind-the-scenes access with special email and video updates as the new work is written.

You can keep up to date with the campaign by following #10fortenor on Twitter or the Tenner for a Tenor page on Facebook. What are you waiting for? To donate text BRITTEN to 70700, or visit http://www.tennerforatenor.com/. 4lb of sauasages or a piece of music that will last a lifetime – which will you choose?

Nanobots

We've been finding out about nanobots in the past couple of weeks. Nanobots are small microscopic robots. More specifically, nanorobotics refers to the still largely hypothetical nanotechnology engineering discipline of designing and building nanorobots. Nanorobots (nanobots, nanoids or nanites) would typically be devices ranging in size from 0.1-10 micrometers and constructed of nanoscale or molecular components. As no artificial non-biological nanorobots have so far been created, they remain a hypothetical concept but have the potential to revolutionise the fields of medicine, chemistry and electronics.

Now you may ask why an orchestra is interested in these tiny robots. Next week will be giving the world premiere tour of Enrico Chapela's work, Nanobots. Mexican composer, Enrico has been fascinated by the possibilities of nanobots and wanted to explore these in music. His work is constructed by the build up of small individual sections into seven one-minute sections of music. Enrico constructed these tiny ideas using binary codes as a numbering system to obtain individual binary atoms that were then paired with others to form bigger musical ideas: binary molecules. This is the core basis for the primary materials and the work as a whole.

Nanobots will be premièred at Bury St Edmunds new venue, The Apex on Monday evening and then forms part of Britten Sinfonia’s renowned At Lunch series which travels to Cambridge on Tuesday 12 April, London on Wednesday 13 April and Norwich on Friday 15 April. Find out more info here