The winner of the A Song for Our Time contest has been announced; check out West End and Broadway alum Hadley Fraser performing "Looking at the Moon" by Amir Shoenfeld and Caitlyn Burt above. The competition was judged by the previously announced Jason Robert Brown alongside organizers Danielle Tarento and Paul Wilkins, with contestants asked to write an original song in response to the effects of the global pandemic.
The video is free, but donations are encouraged with all proceeds are going to Acting For Others, which provides financial and emotional support to all theatre workers in times of need. Acting for Others ambassador Samantha Bond (Downton Abbey, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels in the West End) offers an introduction.
"We were absolutely overwhelmed at the response to this search, with over 260 submissions from across six continents," said Tarento and Wilkins. "The standard was incredibly high, with new songs from world-class songwriters from all four corners of the globe. Narrowing them down to a shortlist of three was unbelievably difficult."
"Looking at the Moon" features additional vocals by Lizzie Bea (soon to star in the U.K. return of Hairspray), Danny Becker, Caitlyn Burt, Natalie Chua, Christopher Dickins, Laura Frances, Gabriela García, Natalie Green, Alex Hammond, Tom Hier, Sarah Ingram, Devon-Elise Johnson, Kurt Kansley, Shane McDaid, Gemma McMeel, Manuel Pacific, Sam O’Rourke, Ben Sell, Samuel Thomas, Laura Thomson, and Paul Wilkins.
The band features Amir Shoenfeld on keys, Jessie May Smart on violin 1, Victoria Stephenson on violin 2, Rosalind Asprey on cello, John Gregson on guitar, and Diane Hammond on clarinet. Shoenfeld also provided orchestrations and vocal arrangements with musical supervision by Mark Aspinall.
Ben Robbins for The Umbrella Rooms filmed, edited, and mixed the video, with artwork by Rebecca Pitt.
