My debut album is now finished!  It was mastered July 8th, last Thursday.  I’ve been so busy I wasn’t able to blog about it until now (more on that later).  Technically there is a minute amount of mastering left, like encoding tracks and comparing the volume of each track, but Paul said it will take less than an hour.  –In short, the music is done.  For now the thing to do is live with the album for awhile and form an opinion over time before coming back to him about volume, etc.

I am just getting to this blog now b/c, after several days of working on it,  I just sent in my application for the American Music Center’s new recording grant.  I just discovered it about a week ago and am so glad I did, since today is the deadline!  If awarded, it could cover a huge part of the cost of producing the album.  It’s extremely competitive (only 10 grants will be given globally) but I more than meet their criteria, and think I will stand out as a candidate.  So far I have a good track record for getting grants from the AMC (2 for 2), but they were relatively small ; with the album done and <gulp> paid for, this larger one would really count.  I find out in a couple months so stay tuned…

JF