O World - opera/art song arrangement

July 30, 2012

O World is a project of producer Randall Melnyk, a filmmaker who co-wrote a pop-rock song called O World with three other writers in the 1990's. Over the past few years (2010-12), he's been commissioning multiple versions of O World from well known and respected composers/arrangers in all musical genres around the world, recording them in the studio and shooting the performances on video.

The versions of O World are many. Examples include (in no particular order) classic rock, hip-hop, bluegrass, Chinese instrumental/vocal, folk, gospel, solo guitar, Chilean choir, pop classical, chamber choir, Peruvian pipes, Silk Road, solo organ and so on. In addition to the performances, interviews with the composers/arrangers are featured, answering questions about unity through music and the current state of the world. All musical arrangements were done in isolation with none of the artists meeting to discuss the project or their particular take on the song. We were given complete freedom to interpret the song in our genre and Randall recorded the result, which, when added to the others, creates a multi-faceted musical intersection of world music styles centred on one song: O World.

This video is my "opera/art song" arrangement of O World for soprano and piano performed by Heidi Klassen and David Boothroyd.

O World has a channel on YouTube and a page on Facebook.