Miguel Sonnak uses Crowdfunding

Two Aspen Music Festival students have launched a crowdfunding website to help fellow string players with the cost of travelling to US orchestral auditions. 

23-year-old violist Miguel Sonnak, a recent graduate of Lynn University Conservatory of Music in Florida, has teamed up with Anders Cornell to create auditiontrail.org. The site collects donations and invites musicians to applyfor scholarships for plane tickets and travel expenses via an application essay and video audition.

‘They’re going from Boca Raton to San Francisco to New York—all over the country— and these plane tickets are expensive,’ Sonnak told The Aspen Times. ‘Factor in that people sometimes don’t know anyone in that city and they need a hotel room for two nights…

‘I talked to my viola section, they loved it. I went to the cellos and the violins, they loved it. I said, “OK, there’s interest. Let’s see how we can do it.”’

The site funnels all donations directly toward its scholarships, while the operational expenses are currently covered by Sonnak. There are four application periods every year with scholarships funding up to $500 of expenses.

http://www.thestrad.com/cpt-latests/students-launch-crowdfunding-website-to-help-musicians-travel- to-auditions/