A song performed as part of Liverpool’s Eurovision celebrations has been released as a charity single in aid of Ukraine.
Pupils from Sandfield Park School in West Derby and Alt Bridge Secondary School in Huyton delivered a message of support to the war-torn country when they sang You Are Not Alone on stage at Liverpool’s Eurovision Village in May.
The song has now been released on Wild Hope Records, a label recently founded by Liverpool Hope University, to raise money for those affected by the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The track is available to buy on Amazon for £0.99 with all proceeds being donated to Polskie Merseyside, a Liverpool-based organisation set up to support Poles living in the region. They will be distributing the money raised to School 85 in Kharkiv, which was recently damaged when the city was bombed.
Sandfield Park and Alt Bridge are both schools for children with special educational needs. They were invited to be part of Liverpool’s Eurovision celebrations thanks to EuroLearn, a school engagement project which was curated by Liverpool City Council’s Culture Liverpool team as part of the Host City programme for the Eurovision Song Contest 2023.
EuroLearn was supported with funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, with additional funds from the Department for Culture, Media & Sport, Spirit of 2012 and the government’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
Liverpool Hope University was awarded funding to facilitate the Sanctuary and Unity Through Song project with Sandfield Park and Alt Bridge, providing children who may not have previously engaged with the Arts with the opportunity to experience music in a professional setting.
Professor Stephen Davismoon, Liverpool Hope’s Dean of Creative and Performing Arts, composed and arranged the track at the same time as working with the children to devise the lyrics.
The pupils worked hard during many rehearsals over an intense period of eight weeks that saw them working with a variety of performing arts professionals: a conductor; the immix ensemble; performance coaches; an audio engineer; photographer and film-maker.
You Are Not Alone is the first song released on the Wild Hope Records label, which has been launched by the University with the aim of creating opportunities for students, staff and musicians from local communities to engage in the creative process of producing and releasing music.
Professor Stephen Davismoon, Dean of Liverpool Hope University’s School of Creative and Peforming Arts, said:
“You Are Not Alone is very much an expression of solidarity with Ukraine.
“Liverpool’s love and support for all those affected by the war was evident throughout the Eurovision programme and the children were very clear they wanted to capture that when writing the lyrics for the song.
“The release of this track is the legacy of their heart-warming performance and it is fitting that we will be able to provide further support to Ukrainian citizens by donating all the proceeds to School 85 in Kharkiv.
“Everyone involved with Sanctuary and Unity Through Song should be immensely proud of themselves, but particularly the children, who demonstrated incredible passion throughout.
“Being part of the Eurovision spectacle is something that will stay with them forever and we are so thankful to Culture Liverpool for giving us the opportunity.”
You Are Not Alone is out now and is available to buy from Amazon Music.
Categories: Children | Eurovision | Eurovision Village | Liverpool | Music | News
