What is a CD Release Party?

So what's the big deal about a CD release party and exactly what can you expect when you go to one?

I don't know what other people do, but I can tell you what I'm planning.....minus the surprises. (I don't want to reveal too much and spoil the fun for those who will come). 

By the way, everyone is invited.

Basically, it's like a baby shower, AFTER the baby has been born. You invite all your friends and family so you can show off the baby pictures and eat cake. People may get tired of seeing all the posts about the new music and invites to the party, but from the mother's perspective, you are over-the-top-excited because your baby is finally out of the womb and ready to start growing up. But for a short moment in time, everyone will pause, ooh and aah over the dear-to-you but maybe not-so-much-to-others creation you hold in your arms.

Since the music has no printed sheet music anywhere, these musicians pictured above have learned the music from the CD and simple charts. The project "Brand New Me" was recorded in Nashville, but these local musicians have come together to play it live and we range in age from early 20's to late 50's. We've had a lot of fun preparing.

Instrumental chart for "Out of My Box".

A party gives the artist a chance to share some behind-the-scenes trivia that you might not normally hear any other time and I've worked very hard to make this special. There is quite a story behind the title track and new theme of my life, "Brand New Me" and though only a book could reveal it all, here's some excerpts from a press release that went out recently.

"Musician Frances Drost had never had a figure skating lesson in her life when in 2014, at age 47, a serious case of debilitating depression landed her on the ice. Drost’s latest CD, Brand New Me, is a celebration of overcoming obstacles, learning to fly when life has tried to clip your wings and living on the edge — in a good way. She will be sharing her new music on April 29, 2017, at 6:30 p.m. at Christ Community Church in Camp Hill, Pa., to celebrate the CD’s release and her 50th birthday — though she just turned 51 on April 26, 2017.

Frances Drost — creator of the increasingly popular annual Portraits of White Winter Concert — began writing the title track, “Brand New Me,” while on the ice. “Every weekday morning I would get up at 4 a.m., pull myself together, jump in the van and drive for 45 minutes to skate from 6 to 8 a.m.,” Drost recalls. “I had done plenty of ice skating on our farm pond outside of Newville, but I had never had the opportunity to learn to figure skate. Now I was having the time of my life and subconsciously gaining some emotional ground as I glided across the ice.”

Finding inspiration from the intricacy of the art as she watched the young skaters whirl and fly around her, she began to fall in love with skating — in between falls. “But as I kept getting back up and trying again, a brand new me was emerging,” Drost says. “One day while skating and pondering the effects this childhood resurgence was having on me, I began composing ‘Brand New Me’:

Living on the verge of something just begun

I don’t have to do what I’ve always done

Feeling my heart pound a brand new theme

I’m pressing on to a bigger dream

I want to run to the edges

leap off of ledges

feel what it’s like to fly

I’m letting go of the old way

saying, hey, it’s a good day

look what I get to be

a brand new me

“I believe that no matter how hopeless a person might feel, there is always hope, and it often comes to us in the softest whispers, if we pay attention,” Drost says.

So if you're reading this and it's before April 29, 2017, you are more than welcome to come and see what it's like to release a CD.  Since we are serving birthday cake, please reserve a ticket.

You can get your free tickets here.

If you can't make it, but want to hear more about the project itself you can watch the electronic press kit here.