The Lullaby Project gives mums and dads in challenging circumstances the opportunity to create bespoke lullabies alongside professional musicians, allowing them to explore their thoughts and feelings about their children, enhancing the bond between them by creating something that can be treasured forever.
The Lullaby Project was originally devised by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute in the US and was first brought to the UK in 2017 by the Irene Taylor Trust and RPO Resound. Following the success of these original projects, the partners are rolling out The Lullaby Project to three regions of the UK in 2020/21, working with criminal justice and community support groups in London, Suffolk and Hull as part of a wider programme supported by Arts Council England. Find out more about this project here.
In July 2021, RPO Resound and ITT took the Lullaby Project to HMP Norwich for the first time, working with fathers to create eight new lullabies for their children. This was the first project live project delivered live, post-pandemic in a prison. Musicians worked one on one to write songs that reflected the memories, experience and music that the fathers have shared with their children. Participants had the opportunity to recorded their music with musicians from the RPO and perform their new song for the other participants and prison staff. Have a listen to their fantastic creations.
In January-March 2021, RPO Resound and ITT took the Lullaby Project to Hull, working with voluntary organisation Open Doors to create eight new lullabies with parents with asylum-seeker or refugee status. Delivered over Zoom due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, musicians met and worked one-on-one with parents from a range of ethnic, musical and language backgrounds to write songs for their child(ren). Participants then had the chance to meet further musicians during listening sessions to make suggestions or changes to the orchestrated songs, before the final recording sessions. Have a listen to the heart-warming songs below.
This project was generously supported by Arts Council England, The Kestrelman Trust, The Radcliffe Trust, ARCO, University of Hull and the Suffolk Community Fund.
Previous Lullaby Project recordings:
Have a listen to the songs written by our previous Lullaby Project cohorts:
- In the 2017 pilot edition of the Lullaby Project, RPO Resound and ITT worked with migrant and refugee mothers supported by Praxis Community Projects to write and perform 8 original lullabies for their children.
- In July 2017, 8 fathers from HMP Wandsworth worked with the team to write and record original tracks for their loved ones.
- In January and February 2020, the team returned to Praxis Community Projects to work with 8 new mothers on their very own lullabies.
- In February and March 2020, RPO Resound and ITT worked with mothers and fathers with experience of the criminal justice system from Clean Break and Sounding Out to write and perform 8 amazing songs for their children.
- November and December 2020 saw the first ‘remote’ delivery of the Lullaby Project using Zoom meetings to compose and record lullabies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Listen to the songs written by young mothers supported by YMCA Trinity in Ipswich here.