People from 52 countries perform “You Raise Me Up” in unison
During the pandemic, when people have been stuck at home, the world was offered a free class to learn a song on the piano as a global community and perform it together in a Virtual Piano Recital. Lasting 30 days, the goal of the class was to share the joy and gift of music during a time when the world needed it most. The course was offered by No. 1 rated online and app-based piano instruction software, Playground Sessions; multi-GRAMMY Award-winning composer/record producer/humanitarian and co-creator of Playground Sessions Quincy Jones; and the world’s largest source for music publications, Hal Leonard. Playground Sessions released a special video of the beginner, intermediate and advanced piano players from all over the world, who came together to learn how to play “You Raise Me Up” in what turned out to be the largest virtual piano recital in history. The campaign had 52 countries participate, with over 7,000 people learning the iconic song, with 925 video submissions.
All levels of piano players learned different sections of “You Raise Me Up,” as participants were invited to post a video of themselves playing their parts to Instagram or Facebook using hashtag #GlobalPianoRecital, or upload to playgroundsessions.com. At the end of the 30-day period which ended on June 16th, all of the parts from the different levels were culminated in the “You Raise Me Up Global Piano Recital” – a video compilation of all of the recital submissions from around the globe, and is now featured on playgroundsessions.com and shared on social media.
As part of the “You Raise Me Up Global Piano Recital,” Playground Sessions offered free lessons for people to sign up and learn the iconic song, which included instructor-led classes for beginner, intermediate, and advanced players. New lessons were released every day until the full song was learned. The song will continue to be available for new students to learn.
“I want to thank all of the wonderful musicians from around the world that participated in our ‘You Raise Me Up’ recital, and I hope that it brought you as much joy as watching you all brought me,” Jones states. “I have no doubt that everyone who watches this global collaboration will be inspired by its beauty and the power of music to bring us all together.”
“In these times of great affliction for people everywhere, the ‘you’ can be each of us through what we do to help each other, to keep each other safe…to raise each other up,” shares Brendan Graham, composer of “You Raise Me Up.” “‘I am strong when I am on your shoulders, You Raise Me Up…to more than I can be.’”
While people are mandated to stay at home and kids can’t go to school, online education is currently a top way to make productive use of time. People are turning now more than ever to learn music in a time of need for joy, stress relief, and creative self-expression as evidenced by a recent surge in the popularity of Playground Sessions.
