User:Michael.greenacre/The Millennium Song

{{Multiple issues | notable = August 2010 | peacock = August 2010 }}

CD cover of The Millennium Song, featuring Gurdeep Stephens and the Santi Careta Group, published for the 10th anniversary of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona

The Millennium Song is a song written by Michael Greenacre to herald the dawn of the third millennium. It is an arrangement of Frederic Chopin's Prelude op. 28 no. 20 in C minor, with lyrics that speak of the coming of a new era, and which implore humanity to forgive the past.

The dove of peace, symbol of the Global Song project:

Background

The lyrics were written by Michael Greenacre, living at the time in Catalonia, Spain, Chopin composed many of these preludes during his stay in Mallorca. The musical idea was to incorporate four different musical styles in one song: classical music, rock music, jazz and, finally, a modern techno rhythm. The challenge was to pass from the classical original to techno in three minutes.

The original lyrics are in English, but then friends from other regions of Spain and then from other parts of the world started to make various translations and adaptations of the words. All four principal languages of Spain were recorded: La Cançó del Mil·lenni (Catalan), La Canción del Milenio (Castillian — Spanish), Milurteko Abestia (Euskara — Basque) and A Canción do Milenio (Galego — Gallician). Seven of these versions, including the original English version, an Occitan version (La cançun del millenari), the language of south-western France, and a Norwegian version (Tusenårs-sangen), were recorded by the Canadian soprano, Gurdeep Stephens, and are available from the Global Song project in MP3 format for downloading. Subsequently, the Afrikaans version (Die Millenniumlied) and German version (Das Lied des Millenniums) were recorded by South African opera singer Bronwen Forbay, the Zulu version (Iculo le Nkulungwane) was recorded by the famous multi-talented South African singer Sibongile Khumalo and the Slovenian version (Pesem Tisočletja) was recorded at the studios of Radio Ljubljana by the Slovenian singer Nuška Drašček. This Slovenian recording was broadcast at minute zero at midnight of New Year 2001 on Slovenian national television (see External Links below).

Translations have been made and some recorded in 80 different languages and interpretations: some other examples are Irish, Wolof, Belarusian, Serbian, Swedish, Latin (ancient and modern), Icelandic, Italian, Bulgarian, Polish, Schwyzerdütsch, Asturian, Greek (ancient and modern), German, Bavarian, Schwabian, Amharic, Tigrigna, Portuguese, Piedmontese, Danish, Fanti, Hindi, Hungarian, Surinamese, Turkish, Czech, Xhosa, Persian, Flemish Dutch and Albanian.

Objectives

The Millennium Song is an open project to promote interest in world languages and is free to anyone to use in their own language. The backing tracks are available at the GlobalSong project site, for providing the accompaniment. New translations and recordings are encouraged.

Other Activities

A video clip in Catalan was made and showed on Catalan TV3 several times, as well as on the Occitan broadcast on French regional television FR3.

The Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona published The Millennium Song recordings in English and the four languages of Spain (Catalan, Castillian, Basque and Galician) for the university's 10th anniversary in the year 2000.

The song was launched as an internet educational project for schoolchildren at the annual conference of I*EARN (International Educational and Research Network) in Beijing, 2000.

As a result of the Beijing meeting, in December 2000 schools in five continents were linked up simultaneously in a video conference by the Broward Education Communications Network (BECON) in Florida, and pupils in Japan, Australia, Norway, USA, Spain and Kenya sang the song to one another in their own language, and then all together in unison.

Sources

• Preludes, Op. 28, by Frédéric Chopin. Edited by Thomas Higgins. Norton Critical Scores, 1974.

External links

• GlobalSong project
• Michael Greenacre
• Nuška Drašček's recording of Pesem Tisočletja (Millenium Song, in Slovenian)