A Song for West Yorkshire

Online premiere: 12.30pm, 2 February 2022.

Composers Boff Whalley (Chumbawamba) and Thanda Gumede have written a new song inspired by the people of West Yorkshire.

A Song for West Yorkshire: Looking Out, Reaching Out emerged from words written by people right across the county. It is inclusive and welcoming. It reflects on the pandemic that has kept us all homebound and wonders aloud, with a large group of voices, how we can reach outwards to the rest of the world. Starting from the idea that we’re all connected, it builds into a celebration of openness, a song which tells our story of local to global.

The song is performed by Boff and Thanda together with local choirs, Harmony, a cross-community choir from Burmantofts, and The Commoners Choir – the “peculiar, feisty, celebratory, witty, angry and inclusive” collective founded in Leeds by Boff.

Find out more about the song on the Opera North website.

Produced by Sound UK in partnership with Opera North.