Open Source Bach. It was an idea so simple yet completely audacious that it made the front pages of BoingBoing and Slashdot, was written about in Wired, The New Yorker, F.A.Z., Spiegel, La Stampa, and brought together a diverse team that included a publisher, a piano manufacturer, and a notation software company. At the center of it all was pianist Kimiko Ishizaka, my wife and muse. Now, after 11 years of dreaming about it, I'm bringing Kimiko to DrupalCon to perform for you, the Drupal community.
 
The success of the Open Goldberg Variations depended on three very important websites - Drupal sites - and in our session I'm going to tell you about the business and technical challenges that had to be overcome to make the project a reality, and how Drupal more than played its part, enabling a software project, a startup, and a non-profit charity to pioneer collaborative score publishing. Then Kimiko is going to show you what it was all worth, why it's important to begin with, and play Bach for you, live, on the convention center's Steinway grand piano. She'll teach you to love this rich music more than you ever thought possible.
 
The session is one of 12 lecture/concerts, representative of the 12 keys of the piano, that we're performing from September to November this year. In order to take open source music to the next level, we're travelling around the world, reaching out to diverse audiences, and explaining why electronic scores and high-quality public domain recordings are worth investing in. Each of the events will have a different focus, a different audience, and will be broadcast to the world via Google Hangouts On Air, Studio Mode (which sounds awesome!)
 
Prague isn't the only Drupal related stop on the tour. On October 16 we'll be travelling to Hamburg to perform from the offices of Comm-Press, home of the pianist and music aficionado Ralf Hendel. Open Source will also be a focal point when we perform in the Manifold Recording Studio in Pittsboro, North Carolina. The studio was built by Michael Tiemann, author of the G++ compiler and Vice President of Open Source Affairs at RedHat.
 

In order to come to DrupalCon, and to perform at Comm-Press and the other locations, we're running a Kickstarter campaign. One of the interesting creations that came about as a result of last year's project is a set of 32 fractal animation videos made by a Swiss artist called Landscape Windscreen. These computer generated fly-throughs of infinite fractal worlds is tranquil, mesmerising, and utterly beautiful. Each video is set to one of the tracks of the Open Goldberg Variations, and the inspiration clearly came from "Open Source Bach". We're offering this new video as an HD download or as a DVD. We're also offering Supporter level tickets to many of the concerts, the opportunity to join Kimiko Ishizaka for dinner afterwards, as well as the opportunity for corporate sponsors to underwrite the whole tour with logos and messages on the programs, websites, and broadcasts.
 
A successful Kickstarter will help pay for expenses like the piano rental during DrupalCon, the travel to Prague and Hamburg, and Kimiko's O1 visa to perform in the USA. Whether you're attending DrupalCon Prague or not, you can help us in our quest to create open source music, and you can watch all 12 performances on the Google Hangouts, or view them later on YouTube. Thanks for your help!
 
PS - see if you can spot Richard Stallman in the Kickstarter video!
PSS - the photos are Kimiko playing at the OHM2013 festival, and the Manifold Recording Studio's music room.
Tags: MusicDrupal PlanetDrupalKimiko Ishizaka