Songs of Chris Kempster: National Folk Festival launch

One of the highlights at the National Folk Festival this year was the "Songs of Chris Kempster" double CD launch. For two years the Chris Kempster Project team had worked to raise funding, to find the thirty tracks we were to use, to get copyright clearance, to write and organise the design of the booklet and finally to produce as professional a CD as we could muster.
There were many near misses, including the possibility of no CDs to launch, but there were many more hits. We had great support from the folk community from day one, we had crucial support from institutions like the National Library and the ABC, with their invaluable archives. We had support from audiences at the fundraising concerts and from the NSW Folk Federation. We had support form Cornstalk and Trad&Now. We had support from folk festivals from unions and from New Theatre. Most importantly we had the budgetary support for the project from our thirty odd sponsors. From our lists of contacts and supporters we worked out that over 100 people "out there" were helping to push this project along.

The Chris Kempster Project team met maybe six or seven times over the two years and a huge amout of our work was done by email, well over 500 emails bouncing back and forth to sort things out, correct wording and historical facts, and finally agree on the content of the CD and its booklet. We ran a website [ chriskempster.net ] to keep people informed of our activities and our fundraising. Such a 21st Century endeavour!

The launch itself was incredible, such a high level of entertainment, such a keen and generous audience, such rapport, such a meeting of minds and souls. Launched? That CD took off like a blooming rocket!

where to buy CD