This in fact is pretty awesome! The Sounds of Christmas from Asia Pacific project is a multilingual and intercultural Christmas song project, showcasing the diverse and creative multicultural and multilingual communities in Sydney. Produced by Kevin Bathman of Carnival of the Bold and Benjamin Oh of Equal Voices, this initiative is community led, with all proceeds from the sales of the album going to seed funding for a subsequent project as well as supporting Mudgin-gal Women’s Place, an Aboriginal women-led organisation supporting vulnerable women and The House of Welcomethat shelters, welcomes and empowers people seeking asylum and refugees regardless of their age, gender, sexuality, nationality or religion.
Here are the list of vocalists who contributed to the album – all singing in different Asian Pacific languages.
Kiarateuila Lattimore(Samoa), Peter Lazaro (Indonesian), Jinky Marsh (Filipino), Kumi Matsuda (Japanese), Loma Schaaf (Tongan), Radhika Sukumar-White(Tamil), Ruci Tuiwai (Fijian) and Cynthia Su (Mandarin).
Here are the songs sung:
It Came Upon The Midnight Clear (Indonesian), Hark the Herald The Angel Sing (Japanese), What Child Is This (Filipino), Silent Night (Tamil), O Holy Night (Samoan), O Come All Ye Faithful (Fijian) and Auld Lang Syne (Mandarin).
Those involved with producing different elements of the album:
Producers: Kevin Bathman & Benjamin Oh • Musicians: Jeremy Koay, Peter Lazaro, John Hoac & Grace Song• Assistant Producer: Bibiana Peter • Audio Engineer: Karna K. (MillionMasters) • Cover Design & Illustrator: Freda Chiu
This initiative is also supported by the City of Sydney, with the launch happening this Friday, 26th November at 8pm (AEST) via zoom.
You can register to attend the the launch by clicking here. To order a copy of the album, please click here .
Images via The Sounds of Christmas Eventbrite