As A Crowdfunding Platform Implodes, A Legendary Composer Rebounds
John Zorn, the prolific and brilliantly iconoclastic composer, realized a dream of sorts last year when he released The Book Beriah — a boxed set of 11 new albums, featuring as many different groups interpreting music he'd written for that purpose.
The 92 songs in the set amounted to the final column of an impressive edifice: the Masada songbook, which he began just over 25 years ago, building on the legacies of Jewish folk music. Originally limited in scope to a single working band called Masada, the project expanded to include many branches and collaborators, and a series of releases on Zorn's label, Tzadik.
was a Tzadik release too, though its, a British-based direct-to-fan crowdfunding service designed to help bring musical projects to fruition. "The only way we could have broken even was going on a platform like this," Zorn tells NPR Music.
