Article: Music with a heart for the poor - CompassionArt hits shelves this week

Via: Christianity Today

Twelve CompassionArt songwriters, joined by seven genre-defining guest vocalists, have come together for an unprecedented offering to help the poorest of the poor through the 14-song charity album, CompassionArt: Creating Freedom From Poverty.

This groundbreaking recording, which includes a compelling 50-minute DVD CompassionArt documentary, will be available at both physical and digital retail outlets in Europe through Fierce!/Kingsway and sold at WH Smith stores across the UK.

Nineteen of the most well-known artists in the whole genre of Christian/Gospel music are featured on the CompassionArt recording. The songwriters on the album are Paul Baloche, Steven Curtis Chapman, Stu G, Israel Houghton, Tim Hughes, Graham Kendrick, Andy Park, Matt Redman, Martin Smith, Michael W Smith, Chris Tomlin, and Darlene Zschech. Kirk Franklin, Amy Grant, Joel Houston, Leeland Mooring, Christy Nockels, tobyMac and CeCe Winans all feature as guest vocals.

The goal of CompassionArt and this recording is to engage people everywhere to help end world poverty. None of these artists will ever receive a dime for their efforts.

CompassionArt is not a one-time Live Aid concert, nor just one We Are The World-type song, but a whole album of original songs forever donated to the poor. Songs can be heard, recorded, re-recorded and sung for generations, earning royalties for publishers when the songs are played and through a variety of other outlets over many years.

In addition to the songwriters and guest vocalists, the publishers, managers, record labels, copyright institutes and agents involved are donating their efforts on this project to CompassionArt.

“We are a global community, an underground adventure, a map being drawn as we speak that connects wealth with poverty, art with hope, compassion with despair,” says CompassionArt founder and Delirious? frontman Martin Smith. “We have united ourselves as a community of artists and songwriters to give it all away. Please join us by purchasing the album, playing these songs and singing them in your church services.

“Every CompassionArt songwriter has nominated a charitable project that will share in half the proceeds that these songs raise,” continues Smith. “The projects supported include those that offer people primary healthcare, clean water, education and more. But we also wanted to do something together; we wanted to invest the other half of the proceeds in projects that would join the dots between art and compassion.”

Four collective projects were chosen to receive 50 per cent of the proceeds from these songs: Hand of Hope, offering relief and restoration for families caught up in Mumbai’s sex trade and food and education for children scraping for survival on a rubbish dump in Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Stop The Traffik, a global movement against the trafficking of people that has more than 1,000 member organisations in 50 countries and a grassroots following of ordinary activists around the world; Ray of Hope, a team of people in remote parts of Brazil that meets the needs of children - food, education, support, advice, clothing and medical aid; and Watoto, a charity helping orphaned children to abused mothers, and helping to restore hope to people whose lives have been devastated by suffering, providing creative life centers, encouraging artistic education and plans for a better future for all.

The Littlehampton-based CompassionArt held a songwriters’ retreat in January. The 12 songwriters worked together toward a common goal to write 10-12 songs for charity, but by the end of the retreat, had completed 22 new songs. The CompassionArt songwriters began recording the songs for the CompassionArt: Creating Freedom From Poverty album in February at the famous Abbey Road Studios in London, with later recording sessions in Nashville, New York and Los Angeles. Joining the songwriters and guest vocalists to work on the album were such acclaimed musicians, producers and engineers as Josiah Bell, Matt Bronleewe, Danny Duncan, Sam Gibson, Andy Hunt, Ted Jensen, Lakewood Choir, Dan Needham, Paul Moak, Jack Joseph Puig, The Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, Tommy Sims, Akil Thompson and the Watoto African Children’s Choir.

Catching the vision of CompassionArt early, several music festivals this past summer, including a couple of the largest festivals, Creation and Cornerstone, ran a three-minute CompassionArt promotional video on their JumboTrons in support of this movement.

Notably, WH Smith, has chosen CompassionArt to be a featured Christmas release to promote in its 486 stores.

Recognised already for its charity work, CompassionArt became the recipient of the inaugural “Gospel Angel Award” presented by the Gospel Music Channel during the network's telecast of this year’s Dove Awards.