American crowd-funding website helping to ‘Kickstart’ career of young North London singer
Eleni Violaris, a 24 year-old singer-songwriter from North London who was “The Voice” of the BBC One David Dimbleby Series, ‘Seven Ages Of Britain’, is set to release her debut album, ‘Rainstriker’, with the support of backers through the premier American crowd-funding website, Kickstarter, which recently opened it’s doors to UK based projects. “Kickstarter is a great platform for people like me to get projects off the ground”, says Eleni. “People can back projects for what ever amount they can afford, starting from £1, in return for being involved in the creative process, as well as receiving some great and exclusive rewards”.
Eleni, who has been described by record company bosses as the girl with the “million-dollar voice” and who recently toured with Andrea Bocelli in the UK and sang on the latest Katherine Jenkins and Lesley Garrett albums, is seeking to raise £25,000 from Kickstarter backers . This is in order to help her complete, release and distribute her album independently, worldwide.
“Whilst a major record company was excited and offered me a contract to release Rainstriker – describing it as “A real winner” – I did not to pursue it” says Eleni, who felt that with the current state of the recording industry and with major labels cutting down on advances and recording costs, it would have meant compromising her artistic vision for the album, “Something that would not happen with crowd-funding”, enthuses Eleni.
An outstanding musician and singer with a ‘four-octave’ range who is equally at home singing, pop, crossover and classical, Eleni was inspired to write Rainstriker after being invited to provide the vocals for the Seven Ages of Britain series and after being shown a rough cut of a scene in which David Dimbleby recited lines from the epic English poem, Beowulf, in Anglo-Saxon. Eleni felt it might be a good idea to sing the end titles of the series in authentic Anglo-Saxon. After researching the ancient language and the viability of conveying emotion through a song whose lyrics people would not understand, put the idea to the producers who loved it and gave the go-ahead.
“Rainstriker is a unique conceptual music album,” says Eleni, “which fuses English and Anglo-Saxon lyrics with ethnic elements and film music style arrangements”. Eleni’s younger brother Adam, a prolific 22-year-old composer and musical prodigy who went straight from college to composing music for the Seven Ages Of Britain series, composed the music for Rainstriker. Eleni’s father, Andonis (also a composer and the executive music producer on the series), wrote the lyrics together with Eleni.
‘Backer only’ copies of the planned 14-track album and other ‘exclusive’ rewards include; taking part on the recording of two of the songs from the album at a top London studio; appearing in the ‘promo-video’ of the single from the album; signed copies of Eleni’s original artwork for the album and an invitation to the album launch party, which will be organised and hosted by well-known international socialite and friend to the stars, Viviane Ventura, who lives in Miami, Florida and who is an avid fan of both Eleni and Adam. Viviane is an enthusiastic backer of Rainstriker on Kickstarter, which she has described as “A sensational idea”.
Eleni’s Rainstriker project on Kickstarter is active for a ‘limited time’ only and ends shortly. Those interested in becoming backers and being part of Eleni’s success in getting the album off the ground, need to act quickly to register their interest and make their pledge. This can be done by visiting Eleni’s Kickstarter page at: www.kck.st/YDSJ9X, or by visiting her website at: www.eleniviolaris.com and following the link to her Kickstarter page, where Eleni’s presentation video trailer may be viewed and in which she explains more about the project. People can also sign up to Eleni’s mailing list via her website for all the latest news and future updates.