User:Michael.greenacre/The Millennium Song

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

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,^{[citation needed]} Spain, Chopin composed many of these preludes during his stay in Mallorca^[1]. The musical idea was to incorporate four different musical styles in one song: classical music, rock music, jazz and, finally, a modern techno rhythm.^{[citation needed]} The challenge was to pass from the classical original to techno in three minutes.^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]} 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).^{[citation needed]} 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).^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]}

References

^ The Life of Chopin, by Franz Liszt (translated by Martha Walter Cook). Timeless Classics Books, 2010

Sources

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

External links

[1] The Life of Chopin, by Franz Liszt (translated by Martha Walter Cook). Timeless Classics Books, 2010

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