Songbirds /  الطيور المغردة 

“melodies ringing

in soaring flight

guide us, horizon,

to newer delights”

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Bradford Friendship Choir is a community of singers who support, and include, refugees and people seeking asylum. Their Voices Weaving project touches on themes of birdsong and taking flight, using English, Farsi and Arabic, languages spoken by many of the choir members, to share a story of optimism through poetry and song. The text was written in collaboration with Ali Al-Jamri, and the music was composed in collaboration with Michael Betteridge.

“It has shown that people from different walks of life can come together and be creative and build good energy.”

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The music video, captured as part of the process, shows members of the choir writing lines of poetry in their native languages, intertwining musical notes with text and creating a tapestry of lyrics on a huge white circle of paper.

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​“Working across multiple languages gave me a much better understanding of what it must be like to communicate using a language that isn't your first language.”