Birmingham’s BSL Community Chorus project, ‘Your Love Lifts Me Up’, will be presented as part of the Birmingham 2022 Festival, a six-month celebration of creativity which surrounds the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. The BSL Community Chorus is a Creative City project generously funded by Birmingham City Council. (BSL = British Sign Language).

There are over 5,000 Deaf children in the West Midlands and 32 million  worldwide. For the Birmingham 2022 Festival, local artist collective Friends Of Cedar Church have ambitiously orchestrated and provided an uplifting community song to celebrate British Sign Language (BSL) as a major language in Birmingham, a City of Languages, and across the world. The aim is to empower Deaf children by teaching signing through singing across whole communities.

Over 150 different performers and personnel from different countries have been involved in this truly major creative collaborative effort, including a brand new verse written and signed originally in BSL. This is then interpreted into English subtitles and freely expressed vocally over the combination of a classically orchestral soundscape and percussive ethnic rhythms to musically reflect the range of traditions and vibrant flavours of this richly diverse region.

Along with three versions of the finished recording, there is a joyous official song video featuring all of the artists and groups involved in the project to accompany the audio release. This will coincide with the start of the Cultural Festival in the lead up to the games and beyond with some live performances of “Your Love Lifts Me Up” in various locations around the city.