We have had many enquiries asking ‘What is happening?’ ….’When is the next VATW song going to be launched?’ I have to say at times this year we were asking ourselves the same questions! Last year, friend of the VATW and pop legend Howard Jones offered a new one of his songs to VATW. We were especially delighted because the song had been written for a blockbuster film due to be released. However, the film release was substantially delayed and, as I write, has still to be released. The agreement with film director was that we could not have access to the song UNTIL the film is released. Finally, after waiting and witing and waiting ……at the beginning of February, we decided to sadly abandon Howard’s song for now, and work on a new song/theme. Hopefully, Howard’s song will surface for us to use next year.
Everything came together very well with the new song and the VATW team think it is definitely the best song we have produced so far (mind you we probably say this every year!!!!). It’s called ‘What Kind Of World Are We Trying To Make?’ In the news recently, have been some incredible pollution stories associated with plastics and we decided to make saving the planet at the core of the new song. Over the next few weeks we will be laying down the vocal tracks to provide you with the mp3 choir guide vocals for the different choir parts. One big difference this year is that we are also producing some very good quality teaching modules to support the themes in the song, so if you are looking at promoting environmental education more strongly, the resources will be especially high value not just for the choir but to the wider school community. So the eventual project release will include the following:
Full demo version of the song – Choir part guide vocal tracks - Backing track with no vocals – Full sheet music of vocal and instrumental parts – Full instructions for teaching the singing, recording the vocals and even to help you with a video shoot – Environmental/conservation teaching modules – A full cartoon/video karaoke video version of the song to help your choir word learning sessions and for use with the teaching modules.
Yes but WHEN??….I hear you shouting. After consulting with a few schools with whom we work closely, we decided to hold off the project launch until September 2018, which is the start of the new academic year for many schools around the world. Rather than rush things we thought it best to lay in some planning time for schools, as we know how hard it can be with scheduling activities across the year. Having said this …it is possible we will start uploading resources as they become ready for you so that schools and youth organisations who wish can start work ahead of the September release date.
Running up to the launch in September and thereafter, we will be sending you regular newsletters about the song, with tips on singing and recording and, news of any extra resources that are made available so DO watch out for these. We will also be producing some instructional videos this year to save a lot of reading and speed up the information coming to you.
As always, the VATW song lends itself to any dance and movement work and we would love to see this for any schools that especially enjoy these areas.
The team here think that this year’s song lends itself especially towards dramatic production with the hard-hitting themes in the song.
It is going to be tremendously exciting as ever to see what amazing things all of the schools and youth organisations we work with get up to with the Voices Around The World project - we can't wait to get started! It will be AMAZING.
If you have any questions or suggestions for the VATW team please don't hesitate to contact us - usually we will respond within 24h. Just email us at info@voicesaround.com