The cover of "The Minnesota Beatle Project, Vol. 1", on sale Tuesday.
It's been a hard day's night to find funds for Minnesota public school art and music programs. But now, a group is hoping to get a little help from Beatle fans through a new benefit CD, to be released Tuesday, that pays tribute to the Fab Four.
"The Minnesota Beatle Project Volume 1" features Minnesota-born-or-based musicians, among them the 80-piece Anthony Middle School Concert Band, performing original versions of their favorite Beatle tracks. The album artwork was created by students in the Minneapolis and St. Paul public schools. It will be available at record stores throughout Minnesota, Schmitt Music and online through the website of Vega Productions, the nonprofit group producing the CD. All net proceeds from the CD will be used to rebuild and enhance music and art education for children in Minnesota public schools.
A CD release party will take place at 6:30 p.m. December 8th at First Avenue, 701 1st Ave. North, Minneapolis, Minn in conjunction with Curtiss A's 30th annual tribute to John Lennon. (The club is where Prince got his start.) Performers will include Romantica, Lucy Michelle & the Velvet Lapelles and Nicholas "The Feelin" Mrozinski. Tickets are $13 and are available at www.first-avenue.com or at the First Avenue box office.
Mark Gehring of Vega Productions says the CD sprang from the group's efforts to rebuild public school music and art programs.
"We wanted to produce an album, but we also wanted to do something that brought the whole Minnesota music community together and had a unifying theme that kind of tied together all of the different genres," he told us on the phone. "And the Beatles were kind of that force that brought everybody together. Because no matter what style of music you play, pretty much everybody is a Beatles fan. That also worked really well because the Beatles have such a broad appeal to the general listening audience."
Vega Productions, the Minnesota Music Educators Association (MMEA) and the Art Educators of Minnesota (AEM) will help distribute proceeds from the CD throughout the state. Grant applications for funds will be available through the groups' websites. The first grants will be awarded beginning in the spring of 2010.
And Volume 2 is in the works, currently planned for November, 2010. "Definitely going to happen," he said. "We've already got a few bands signed on for Volume 2," including two well-known names, which Gehring says he can't reveal until the release date of Volume 2 is formally announced.
"I can say that both bands recent releases have earned high praise from Rolling Stone, have toured the world over many times over and will be hitting the studio to record their tracks in early 2010," he said.
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