2008 saw the 20th anniversary of our choir. To celebrate, we commissioned seven new ‘songs for our times’. We felt a need to help stimulate the production of some new and contemporary political songs, to reinvigorate our repertoire and to pass on to other interested choirs. The result was seven wonderful new songs, each on a different theme, in a different style.

The seven new songs were launched to the world at a special concert at the Octagon Centre of Sheffield University on 18 May 2008, attended by over 600 people. Most of the song-writers were there too, and were interviewed by compère Rony Robinson about why they wrote each one.

The new songs and their composers/writers, to whom we are very grateful, are:

We Are All Under the Stars: by Ali Burns website

Bongola: by Anita Mahdia Daulne website

How I Long for Peace: by Peggy Seeger website

Somewhere on Sea: by Theo Simon website

Sleep: by Chumbawamba website

Crossing the Border: by Pete Moser (music) website and Lemn Sissay (words) website

The Power of Song: by Leon Rosselson website

At the concert, we also included a few ‘golden oldies’, songs that have a special place in our repertoire: ‘Senzenina’ from South Africa, ‘La Plegària a un Labrador’ by Victor Jara, and Billy Bragg’s version of the ‘Internationale’. In the second half of the concert, Chumbawamba played a rousing set.
The live recording of our set is now out on the CD ‘Sing for a Change’. For more information on the songs, and to order a copy of the CD, please go to: Our Recordings
We are of course very happy to pass on the words and music to other choirs who would like to sing these wonderful new songs.

Acknowledgements: The choir would like to express our grateful thanks to: “Raise Your Banners”, the Barry Amiel & Norman Melburn Trust and the Lipman-Miliband Trust for their funding support which enabled us to commission the new songs on this CD.
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