The 2008 song is ‘Sing’ and it was born during a John Foreman-led songwriting workshop with four talented Victorian high school students. Jordan Scotney and Hayden Schueler, both in year 12 at Blackburn High School joined Olivia Hally and Charlotte Nicdao, year 11s from VCA Secondary School, to create a song which would fit the challenging brief: catchy enough for primary school students to want to sing it;simple enough for teachers with few musical skills to learn and then teach their students; pop-y; a celebration of music and singing; and with enough going on for older students and music teachers to put their own stamp on the song by rearranging it, for example.

Each student received the brief in advance and was asked to compose some ideas to take into the workshop with John. When they came together for the first time, each student played their ideas to the 'team'. John took a chorus idea from one, chord progressions for the bridge from another, melody for the verses from here and rhythm ideas from there. The cooperative spirit kicked in and quickly it all came together. One week later and Kate Ceberano joined the team in the studio to add her stellar voice to the recording of the song – a great thrill for the songwriters.

Olivia Hally, whose chorus idea became the springboard for the rest of the song: "I had a lot of fun thinking of ideas for the session. It was amazing how the songwriting process worked in that situation and extremely inspiring. It’s a great feeling to be able to hear the song as a whole after watching it grow from the beginning. I can’t wait to see how the song is received by the public."

LISTEN TO THE SONG HERE (MP3 2.9MB)


Are you registered? Click here to register now