In 2012, composer Ashby Anderson with the local non-profit Jazz Arts Consortium was commissioned through New Music USA’s Commissioning Music Program to write a new work inspired by Richmond’s African Burial grounds in Shockoe Bottom — the one formerly covered by a VCU parking lot.

His work, “Undertones,” for 20-piece jazz orchestra, melds together jazz orchestration, improvisation, African rhythms, chants, narrative and dance. And now it’s ramping up for a professional recording and performance and needs the public’s help.

An Indiegogo campaign has been launched to pay for rehearsal space for 13 rehearsals, as well as professional documentation (audio and video), and all other expenses including musician costs, marketing, and venue rental, sound and security. The goal is to raise $20,000 by April 12.

Here’s a video about the project:

Anderson says in the video he hopes the work “will encode a message for the future that we’ll be able to constantly pass our history down to successive generations through repeated performances of the actual work, ‘Undertones.'”