An award-winning period instrument orchestra is using crowd-funding website WeDidThis to drum up financing for a new CD. The International Baroque Players is looking to raise £2,500 to fund the recording, which will feature violin concertos by Telemann and Heinichen alongside an unrecorded sonata for orchestra by Handel and a concerto for violins, flutes, oboes and strings by Johann Friedrich Fasch.

WeDidThis was set up earlier this year to help UK arts organisations, and like similar crowd-funding sites such as the US-based Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, it offers varying rewards to people who fund a project. In the case of the International Baroque Players' recording campaign, the rewards for supporters include a copy of the disc and the chance to sit in on the recording sessions.

At a time when government and local authority funding of the arts is being squeezed in the UK, some classical music organisations have found crowd-funding to be a very effective financing option. For example, London Music Masters' recent 'Buy a Bar' campaign to raise £4,250 to commission a new violin concerto ended up raising £6,672, with more than 140 people donating to the project.

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