Ave Maria Choir, Clegg, Nigeria

Ave Maria Choir, Clegg, Nigeria

Ave Maria Choir, Clegg, Nigeria

Ave Maria Choir, Clegg, Nigeria

A warm welcome to the Ave Maria Choir ,OLQN Clegg a Choir of Young people in Our Lady Queen of Nigeria Parish Church, Clegg. We’re delighted you’ll be singing A life Lived with Grace on 2nd of June for The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee!

National Lottery Community Fund Support

National Lottery Community Fund Support

The Queen's Platinum Jubilee Beacons Song for the Commonwealth

Supported by the National Lottery Community Fund
Find out about our Platinum Jubilee Beacons, Song for the Commonwealth Celebrations

We are delighted to receive funding from the National Lottery Community Fund to help support our work for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Beacons Song for the Commonwealth.

The project has been running for nearly a year already, but as we approach Jubilee Day we were delighted to receive help to ensure this once in a lifetime event is able to run as smoothly as possible.

The Commonwealth Resounds is run entirely by volunteers who work tirelessly to try and help make a difference. We receive no central funding for our work and the difference this new support from the Community Fund will make to our project is huge. Our aim is to link up a choir with every one of the fifteen hundred beacons throughout the UK and across the Commonwealth. With this number of participants, the logistics and administration are quite a challenge for a small charity like ourselves!

We are delighted and extremely grateful to receive this funding from the National Lottery Community Fund. It will enable us to take this project to the next level and support choirs and music across the Commonwealth.

We hope that the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee will inspire choirs to gather and reform after this global pandemic. This promises to bring a moment of hope after a dark few years for all choirs and communities involved.

Alison Cox OBE

Founder and Trustee, Commonwealth Resounds

First rehearsals underway!

First rehearsals underway!

First Rehearsals Underway

The Bersted Community Choir

We are delighted to hear from The Bersted Community Choir as they begin their first rehearsals on A Life Lived With Grace. We can’t wait to hear their final performance!

If you would like to share your videos or audio with us, please do get in touch, we love to hear from everyone! 

A Song for the Commonwealth – music and recordings now released!

A Song for the Commonwealth – music and recordings now released!

A Song for the Commonwealth

Listen to our song for the Commonwealth

This is the very first recording of ‘A Song for the Commonwealth’ – just to introduce it to everyone.

It can be sung in many different ways, in different keys and by different groups of voices. We shall help choirs to find the right version for themselves!

You can find plenty of alternative arrangements on this page. We will be adding to this so if one doesn’t work for you, please check back or get in touch with us.

Please read the TERMS AND CONDITIONS carefully.

We are be very excited to be working with all the choirs who have already signed up and warmly encourage others to join us.

A song for the Commonwealth

Music by: Vincent Atueyi Chinemelu
Lyrics by: Lucy Kiely
Performed by: Sacha Dow (treble), Charlotte Potter (Soprano), Elisha Jade (Soprano), Leyla Ruby (Soprano), Clare Sutherland (Alto), Stephen Mike Chidi (Tenor), Toby Hession (Bass), Patrick Owston (Bass), Joaquim Badia (Backing track)
Produced by: Tom Bell

The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Winners announced

The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Winners announced

We are delighted to announce our winners of A Song for the Commonwealth after a rigorous competition including lyricists and composers from across the entire Commonwealth.

We were delighted to receive so many excellent, meaningful entries. Every single piece of work has been carefully read or listened to by our panel of esteemed and distinguished adjudicators before the winners were chosen.

A song for the Commonwealth

Music by: Vincent Atueyi Chinemelu
Lyrics by: Lucy Kiely
Performed by: Sacha Dow (treble), Charlotte Potter (Soprano), Elisha Jade (Soprano), Leyla Ruby (Soprano), Clare Sutherland (Alto), Stephen Mike Chidi (Tenor), Toby Hession (Bass), Patrick Owston (Bass), Joaquim Badia (Backing track)
Produced by: Tom Bell

 

Our two winners are…

Lucy Kiely

Lucy Kiely

Lyricist

To be selected as the winning lyricist on the unique occasion of The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee is a once-in-a-lifetime honour and I extend my heartfelt congratulations to the winning composer. I am thrilled that my lyrics ‘A Life Lived With Grace’ will be performed by choirs and community singers as the Beacons are lit throughout the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth on 2nd June 2022, in celebration of Her Majesty The Queen’s extraordinary 70-year reign.

Lucy Kiely is a 30-year-old singer songwriter from Sydney, Australia with a passion for jazz. After graduating from the University of Sydney, Lucy wrote, recorded and independently released two EPs and one LP of all original material inspired by her travels and life experiences. Lucy’s releases have enjoyed worldwide exposure across a variety of platforms. These days Lucy performs regularly as a vocalist, is writing her second full-length album and is currently a semi-finalist across nine different categories in the 2021 UK Songwriting Contest.

Lucy Kiely

Vincent Atueyi Chinemelu

Composer

My joy rests on the fact that my humble effort has led to a gigantically bountiful harvest. I am so glad that my little song has attained a universal relevance and will cement the love and bond shared by all the peoples of the world as the song is sung as the Beacons are lit throughout the UK and the Commonwealth in celebration of The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee on 2nd June 2022. I am happy that through our song, with the lyrics written by my friend Lucy Kiely, the love, peace and harmony promoted by the Commonwealth of Nations through their involvement in The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Beacons will become indelible in our minds and more real in our lives.

Vincent is a 38-year-old academic musician from Anambra State, Nigeria. He is a multi-instrumentalist who plays the piano, flute, cello, trumpet, alto-sax and guitar and in 2021 he received the Department Award of Excellence from the University of Uyo, Nigeria after studying there for 5 years. Ordained as a Roman Catholic Priest in 2011 after his Theological studies, Vincent is credited with over a hundred religious, art and secular vocal music compositions, 30 piano works, arranged and composed orchestral pieces and musical solos. Presently, he has returned to the St. Dominic Savio Seminary in Akpu, Nigeria as Music Director again whilst preparing to further his studies in music to Master and Doctorate levels.

The adjudicators

The Rt Hon. Patricia Scotland QC

Commonwealth Secretary-General

Judith Weir Photographer, Sim Canetty-Clarke.

Roderick Williams OBE

Baritone

Judith Weir Photographer, Sim Canetty-Clarke.

Judith Weir CBE

Master of the Queen’s Music

Alison Cox OBE

Founder and Chair of Trustees, The Commonwealth Resounds / Head of Composition, The Purcell School for Young Musicians.

Bruno Peek LVO OBE OPR

Pageantmaster, The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Beacons

Anne T. Gallagher AO

Director-General of the Commonwealth Foundation

Graham Trew MVO

Baritone, former Chairman of the Association of English Singers and Speakers.