To coincide with Children’s Mental Health Week (February 1st – 7th 2021) and to bring some positivity to these hard times, pop icon Billy Ocean has teamed up with the Young Voices Choir to release a new and uplifting recording of the Bill Withers’ classic ‘Lovely Day’.
Also featured on the track are award-winning broadcaster and musician YolanDa Brown (saxophone) and The Voice UK 2018 winner (and former Young Voices singer) Ruti Olajugbagbe. Released on January 26th by Magic Star (the home of children’s and family entertainment at Sony Music UK), all UK profits will go to children’s mental health charity Place2Be.
Place2Be launched the first ever Children’s Mental Health Week in 2015 to shine a spotlight on the importance of children and young people’s mental health. Place2Be’s school-based teams estimate that 85% of the young people they support have been negatively affected by the pandemic, and have seen an increase in referrals around self-harm and suicidal thoughts in secondary schools. 1 in 6 children and young people have a probable mental health condition
Young Voices is an all-inclusive educational program designed to use music to develop 21st-century skills such as communication, collaboration, creativity, mindfulness, and innovation. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year Young Voices have staged the largest children’s choir concerts in the world. In 2020 alone, Young Voices headlined 24 arenas across the UK, including a record breaking 49th concert at Manchester Arena, the most by any group in the venue’s 25-year history, overtaking Take That’s previous record of 46 shows. To date they have played 60 shows at The O2 arena – more than Adele, Ed Sheeran and Take That combined. Over 170,000 children took part in 24 arena concerts in 2020, totalling 2 million children over the course of Young Voices’ history.
This summer Young Voices will attempt to break their own Guinness World Record for ‘Largest Simultaneous Sing-Along’, currently standing at 293,978 – a record set when the ‘Big Sing 2005’ was broadcast live from the Royal Albert Hall. Streamed live from The O2 arena, Billy Ocean, Yolanda Brown and Ruti and Young Voices will join children, their teachers and families throughout the UK to sing ‘Lovely Day’. Involvement can be registered at: youngvoices.co.uk/biggest-sing/
