Highlights
PROJECT UPDATE
Music & Theater
To Warm The Winter Hearth: Windborne's Album & Book of Midwinter Celebration
Project Update: Survey Deadline, Shipping Timeline, and more!
TL;DR:
-MOST IMPORTANT: Please fill out your survey so we can send you your albums! This is the way for us to get your current shipping info! Survey deadline: November 17
-Shipping is still on track to begin Nov 30
-Come to a show! Our Music of Midwinter tour (northeast US) begins next weekend, and we have a livestream available WORLDWIDE on Dec 8!
-Join our Patreon for year-round access to new music and supporting our mission
-We got the test pressing of our vinyl album! You can add it to your order when you fill out your survey
Surveys: Thank you to the 5500 of you who have already filled out your surveys and given us your addresses for shipping! As you may or may not know, Windborne is entirely run by the four of us (we jokingly refer to Lynn and Will's basement as "Windborne's Shipping and Receiving Department") and since we are also preparing to go on tour right now, it is super helpful to have your info as soon as possible so we can get organized and ready to ship the album the minute we receive it! Your BackerKit survey is the way we can collect and process all that info, so please fill it out soon--the final deadline for surveys is Nov 17. Find your survey here: https://windborne.backerkit.com/ by entering the email address you used to make your pledge.
Downloads: Once you finish your survey, you get the downloads! If you are having trouble just let us (or Backerkit support) know! You can choose between wav and mp3 files for the music.
Downloads: Once you finish your survey, you get the downloads! If you are having trouble just let us (or Backerkit support) know! You can choose between wav and mp3 files for the music.
Shipping: As we said in our main campaign, we will begin shipping at the end of November and everything looks on track for that timeline! We know many of you are eagerly awaiting the album to give as gifts for the holidays, and rest assured that we are doing everything we can to get it to you on time.
Music of Midwinter tour: Starting next weekend, we will be touring our Music of Midwinter show, which includes many of the songs on this album! If you are in the northeast of the US (Maine to Maryland!) we hope you will join us in person at a show this year! We will also do a livestream concert on Sunday, Dec 8, bringing these songs straight to you at home. You can add a livestream ticket to your order in your survey, which will also get you a pass to our post-concert Zoom hangout as a thank you for backing this album! Livestream tickets are also available here if you want to share the link with friends: https://tix.windbornesingers.com/events/windborne/1424440
Patreon: If you want to stay in touch with Windborne year round, see a peek behind the scenes, support our mission, and get exclusive tracks and videos that aren't released anywhere else, we would love to welcome you to our Patreon community! We just celebrated our five year Patreon anniversary, and we are excited to continue growing this vibrant community from all over the world!
Vinyl: We just got the test pressing of our vinyl, and it sounds great! You can add a copy of To Warm the Winter Hearth on vinyl to your order via your survey, but please note that it will NOT ship in time for the holidays. It wasn't originally part of this project, but due to popular demand we ended up adding it! We are so glad you all asked for it, but given its late addition, the production timeline is way further behind the book and CD.
We hope you are enjoying the digital downloads, and thank you so much for your support! If you do make it to a show in person, please do come say hello! We love making the face to face connection after all these months of digital communication. :)
In harmony and gratitude,
Jeremy, Lauren, Lynn and Will
I'm a bit confused, I am getting digital only, do I still need to complete the survey even though nothing is being shipped to me?
Hi I purchased the CD and book as a gift for a loved one. I can put their address in for shipping of physical things, but how can I make sure they can download the music files?
PROJECT UPDATE
Music & Theater
To Warm The Winter Hearth: Windborne's Album & Book of Midwinter Celebration
Project Update: Surveys, Shipping, and More MUSIC!
Just dropping in with a few quick updates about surveys, book printing, shipping, and more music.
-The survey collecting your address and other important info will go out soon! The Backerkit platform is currently reviewing the backend of the survey and as soon as they approve it we will send it out. With the amazing 8000 backers we have for this project, that process is just taking a little longer than expected.
-The books are in progress and the CDs are being pressed! We got an update from the printer this week showing us some sample copies of the book, and it looks amazing! We added gold foil to the back cover as well, and can’t wait to show you.
-US backers have free shipping, and folks outside the US who selected international shipping will also not be charged. If you forgot to select that option, we have decided to extend our subsidized shipping to everyone at that same rate, so you will see that added to your cart.
When you complete your survey you will be directed to download To Warm the Winter Hearth. You can also order the To Warm the Winter Hearth Vinyl Edition You will also have the option of adding Windborne’s older albums to your order if you’d like more vocal harmony in your life, so we wanted to give you a quick overview of the options since they all have a distinct character!
Of Hard Times & Harmony (2022) and Song on the Times (2017): these two albums are songs of social struggle from movements of the past, sung for the struggles of today’s times. Like To Warm the Winter Hearth, they are also books as well as CDs! The books have lyrics, art, and essays about the songs giving historical and cultural context for the music.
Song on the Times also has the melodies of each song notated and features some of our favorite union labor anthems, the Pete Seeger classic Where Have All The Flowers Gone?, and protest songs as old as the 1640s like The Diggers Song.
Of Hard Times & Harmony is a mini hardcover book and features audience favorites like When I’m Gone by Phil Ochs and our song about streaming music called .4 Cents a Play, as well as a modern protest song in the Occitan language called Nou Carbons.
Lay Around That Shack (2015) reflects Windborne’s roots in American and English folk traditions. The powerful four-part harmony is amplified by rollicking banjo, washboard, and jaw harp, and includes the much-requested song Grey Funnel Line by Cyril Tawney.
Midwinter Meeting (2013) is a piece of Windborne history! This album captures live recordings of our first tour as a quartet and includes the most diverse range of songs from different polyphonic traditions, like Corsica, Georgia, Bulgaria, and more.
We also have T-shirts in a beautiful maroon color that feature artwork from Song on the Times! These shirts are union made and union printed in our home state of Massachusetts, and come in unisex sizes Small - XXL
Thanks for your support for our work, and it seems our timeline is still on track to have digital go out this week, and physical ~November 30!
In harmony,
Jeremy, Lauren, Will, and Lynn
If I ticked 'digital only' on the survey, will I still be able to get a hardcopy of the book? How would I do that?
PROJECT UPDATE
Music & Theater
To Warm The Winter Hearth: Windborne's Album & Book of Midwinter Celebration
Project Update: 🎶 ❤️Thank You! ❤️ 🎶 Here's what's next!
Dearest Windborne Backers,
Thank you. Thank you. We are truly lost for words, but these past few days have been humbling and awe-inspiring beyond any way we can even hope to adequately express over a digital format. Mostly I hope that you will come to a show some time and we can be in the same room and sing for you and smile and rejoice in music and harmony and being together and celebrating our togetherness. Really-please come find our shows, and say hi, and that makes all the long hours of dealing with social media and the online slog so worth it. Just people, in person, sharing beauty and in the moment live experiences.
For those of you who don't know our story, we never set out to be full time musicians. We were (and are!) friends who love to sing together, and were pursuing such diverse careers as education, circus arts, choral conducting and ethnochoreology (anthropology of dance) when we had a video go viral, and people started reaching out to us from all over the country asking us to come and sing for them. We had a bunch of long and scary conversations with each other, and then leapt, not knowing if the community would catch us.
Our path has not been straightforward. Like many musicians, the highs of exciting new venues and festivals were often juxtaposed with the shows where 5 people showed up, and the moments of transcendence also came long weeks away from home and friends, wondering if the world really wanted to hear four singers who cared about traditional music, making the world a more just place, and singing in unusual harmony.
You all have given us such a gift in not only supporting our work, but in answering that question with a resounding YES! Singing is important, as are traditions, and harmony, and working towards a equitable and kind world!
In a world where art and music is devalued, and the mainstream expectation is that all music is free (or that we pay corporations like Spotify, and not the artists that make the art), you have said YES, artists should be able to thrive! We are so lucky to have you as a community that rejects extraction of art from artists, and celebrates the whole, and we hope to be able to celebrate with you in person this year, and for many years to come.
Eventually we will have more to say, more eloquently, but for now:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
In harmony,
Jeremy, Lauren, Lynn, and Will
Some Important Info! PLEASE READ!
Thank you. Thank you. We are truly lost for words, but these past few days have been humbling and awe-inspiring beyond any way we can even hope to adequately express over a digital format. Mostly I hope that you will come to a show some time and we can be in the same room and sing for you and smile and rejoice in music and harmony and being together and celebrating our togetherness. Really-please come find our shows, and say hi, and that makes all the long hours of dealing with social media and the online slog so worth it. Just people, in person, sharing beauty and in the moment live experiences.
For those of you who don't know our story, we never set out to be full time musicians. We were (and are!) friends who love to sing together, and were pursuing such diverse careers as education, circus arts, choral conducting and ethnochoreology (anthropology of dance) when we had a video go viral, and people started reaching out to us from all over the country asking us to come and sing for them. We had a bunch of long and scary conversations with each other, and then leapt, not knowing if the community would catch us.
Our path has not been straightforward. Like many musicians, the highs of exciting new venues and festivals were often juxtaposed with the shows where 5 people showed up, and the moments of transcendence also came long weeks away from home and friends, wondering if the world really wanted to hear four singers who cared about traditional music, making the world a more just place, and singing in unusual harmony.
You all have given us such a gift in not only supporting our work, but in answering that question with a resounding YES! Singing is important, as are traditions, and harmony, and working towards a equitable and kind world!
In a world where art and music is devalued, and the mainstream expectation is that all music is free (or that we pay corporations like Spotify, and not the artists that make the art), you have said YES, artists should be able to thrive! We are so lucky to have you as a community that rejects extraction of art from artists, and celebrates the whole, and we hope to be able to celebrate with you in person this year, and for many years to come.
Eventually we will have more to say, more eloquently, but for now:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
In harmony,
Jeremy, Lauren, Lynn, and Will
Some Important Info! PLEASE READ!
Digital files: We just approved the final master for the album so we’ll be sending out those files in the next week to everyone in all pledge levels!
SURVEY: Also in the next week you will receive a survey to collect some important information, most importantly your shipping address. Also To reduce plastic waste: A CD is included by default in most pledges, but we know that many people don’t want them or have no way to play them. To reduce waste, if you opt to not receive the disc we will give you a $5 credit towards any other Windborne merch!
Add-ons: You will also have an opportunity in the survey to buy more albums at a highly discounted campaign rate. This will include our other books and albums, tshirts, sheet music for choirs, and more!
Shipping will begin late November, but if you don't fill out your survey we won't be able to ship. We have so many folks to get these out to, so please do this in a timely manner! ❤️
Thank you again for being part of this journey! We hope to see you at a show sometime You can find subscribe to our schedule and find our events at: windbornesingers.com/concerts
If you want to join us year-round, our Patreon community is where we share our works in progress, behind the scenes stories, and other fun stuff.
Thank you again for being part of this journey! We hope to see you at a show sometime You can find subscribe to our schedule and find our events at: windbornesingers.com/concerts
If you want to join us year-round, our Patreon community is where we share our works in progress, behind the scenes stories, and other fun stuff.
Thank you again and again and again. It's time to sleep, but I feel utterly filled.
In harmony and gratitude,
Jeremy, Lauren, Lynn, and Will