About The Band
American Prize (2023) and Three-time Telly Award winners (Gold, Silver & Bronze, 2021 – 2023), composer Emil Adler, writer Julie Flanders and vocalist Marina Belica of October Project are award-winning, genre-defying recording artists, producers and content providers who collaborate in the creation of musical recordings and events.
Powered by Flanders’ words, Adler’s music, and the group’s trademark harmonies, their earlier work with SONY/Epic and subsequent recordings on their own October Project Music label have been enjoyed by millions. Bridging the worlds of pop, classical, a cappella and choral, they continue to innovate the landscape of Independent Music.
Their new full-length album The Ghost of Childhood (available May 3), alchemizes past and present with eleven songs that evoke the feeling and ethos of their best loved recordings. Co-produced by Adler and Julian Coryell, lead vocalist Belica and Flanders in close harmony are offset by a rhythm section that includes Adler on keys, Coryell (Alanis Morrisette) on guitar and Mark Schulman (Pink) on drums. Brass, strings, choir and Flanders’ spoken word round out a recording that is both an intimate and adventurous album-length experience.
Preceded by a waterfall release of five singles (“Changing Light of Love,” “This Is For You,” “Lost,” “Angels in the Garden,” “Rage of Days”), the album release focus track is the aptly named “Perfect Time,” featuring Flanders on lead and Belica backing.
2024 also marks the 6th Anniversary of the October Project Annual Poetry Contest, launched to encourage and support the art of poetry. Poet/Lyricist Flanders, who is an Amazon best seller for her two books of poetry, Joyride (2015) and Shadow Breathing (2018), also has a new poetry collection due this year. Following upon the success of the animated short of her poem Doubts (2018), an Official Selection at nearly 30 film festivals, The Big Sadness (2023), an experimental short of another Flanders poem surged to over 250,000 YouTube views in its first month of release.
Collaborating with acclaimed Ukrainian sand artist Kseniya Simonova on two music videos for the album, October Project received a Silver Telly for “Angels in the Garden,” also up for a 2024 Music Video Grammy, marking their 9th Grammy ballot appearance. The second, “This Is For You,” broke new ground with the digital animation of Simonova’s color paintings and was an Official Selection at the 2024 American Documentary and Animation Festival.
Emanating from their work with Simonova, October Project maintains an ongoing fundraiser, Angels For Ukraine, for the International Rescue Committee’s efforts to help women and children affected by the war.
With The Book of Rounds (2016, 2021), a song cycle centered on a new brand of ‘conscious rounds’ featuring positive messages, the group began its trail-blazing work in choral music. Their widely heralded Virtual Choir of Joy, produced during COVID, won a Telly and Anthem Award (2021). Their subsequent Worldwide Choir of Return To Me, featuring performers from 18 countries, won a Gold Telly and American Prize (2023).
The Genesis Prize-winning work Holding Our Breath, from Flanders and Venezuelan composer Carlos Cordero, was performed to standing ovations at the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall (2023), and plans for the production of a new Flanders/Adler choral work are now underway.
