Category: Nocturne Award

Excellent Start for Fund Drive

Andrys and cousin Eleanor, Yosemite, 2012

Dear Friends and Family of Andrys,

The effort to fund the “Andrys Basten Nocturne Award” is off to a fantastic start! Begun the evening of April 27th (less than 24 hours after Andrys passed away), the campaign earned $2,325.00 in its first four days, bringing us to over 35% of our goal. That’s a tremendous tribute to the affection and generosity Andrys inspired.

We don’t want the drive to stall, however, and I hope we can all renew our efforts to spread the word about the award and its potential to recognize and encourage musical excellence among new generations of pianists in Andrys’ hometown. In my opinion, nothing exceeds the importance of nurturing beauty in this world, for beauty begets beauty. And inspiring young musicians to absorb, personalize, and then resubmit to the public domain the sublime compositions of Frederic Chopin seems to me a karmic investment worthy of Andrys’ name and our greatest commitment.

Speaking of notable “Freds” . . .

Fred Feinberg continues to pursue a San Francisco music organization(s) to sponsor/bestow the award and help shape the exact form it might take. When we have something concrete on that front, we’ll share the news immediately.

So if you haven’t passed the key links to friends, they appear below in one convenient list:

AndrysBasten.org

The Andrys Basten Nocturne Award

GoFundMe Campaign

AndrysBasten.org on facebook

Email, facebook, and twitter are built for this kind of sharing, as are the music and other forums where Andrys was active. But don’t underestimate the power of good old-fashioned word of mouth.

I hope all who knew Andrys will visit the Guestbook (registration requires a valid email address to prevent spammers) and leave a memory or impression or tribute. Alternatively, you can simply post via your facebook account to the integrated AndrysBasten.org facebook page. Such tributes will be a vital part of the site’s content, especially in regard to prospective donors and competitors for the piano award.

I hope to update the “About Andrys” page with my own impressions sometime over the next week and would be grateful for help with basic biographical information from any family or friends willing to compile it. I’m also working hard to preserve Andrys’ online photography by copying her galleries to the website. The latter is a major undertaking that virtually demands some kind of automation, which brings its own share of complexities. I’ll issue news on my progress as warranted.

In the meantime, perhaps you can share a couple of montages with potential donors, one showcasing Andrys’ pianism and photography and the other featuring photographs she took of her beloved San Francisco. You can tell a lot about a person by what they devoted their time and talent to.

Thanks again for your past and continued support of this effort.

Elizabeth Lowrey
Webmaster at AndrysBasten.org
GoFundMe Campaign Organizer