Virtual Music Collaborations

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, as stated in my other blog "Cancelled by Corona" many different concerts and festivals have been canceled along with the creation of artist collaborations due to social distancing but there are two very interesting cases I have found that show artist pushing through the virus by creating amazing collaborations online so that COVID-19 would not take away more music.

The first one is actually what inspired this post. As talked about in MANY of my blogs Marianas Trench is my favorite band, so when I saw that the lead singer Josh Ramsey posted that he was a part of a project called ArtistCAN, of course, I had to look into it.

ArtistCAN is a start-up project in which various artists from Canada created a beautiful online mash-up collaboration of "Lean On Me" to raise money for the Canadian Red Cross and their COVID-19 tasks force, but also to tell Canada that they are stronger together and they will get through it. All the money from the downloads goes strickly to charity.

The musical artist involved are: Avril Lavigne, Bad Child, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Bryan Adams, Command Sisters, Dan Kanter, Desiire, Donovan Woods, Fefe Dobson, Geddy Lee, Jann Arden, Johnny Orlando, Josh Ramsay, Jules Halpern, Justin Bieber, Marie-Mai, Michael Bublé, Olivia Lunny, Ryland James, Sarah McLachlan, Scott Helman, Serena Ryder, Shawn Hook, TIKA, The Tenors, Tyler Shaw, Walk Off The Earth

But there were also special appearances from other Candian sports stars, actors politicians, and public figures including: Alicia Moffet Cailli & Sam Beckerman, Chloe Wilde, Chris Boucher, David Suzuki, Drew Scott, Fred Penner, George Stroumboulopoulos, Hayley Wickenheiser, Jason Priestley, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Kayla Diamond, Kelsi Mayne, Liz Trinnear, Loud Luxury, Lyriq Bent, Maripier Morin, Pearl & Daisy Wenjack, Russell Peters, Sara Diamond, Scott McGillivray, Sharon & Bram, Shaun Majumder, Shay Mitchell, Shenae Grimes, Soska Sisters, Spencer West, Steve Yzerman, Tom Jackson, Trailer Park Boys, Tyrone Edwards.

I also found the Social Distancing Festival (https://www.socialdistancingfestival.com) a website that brings artists of all talents all over the world together to showcase their work. At the Social Distance Festival, there is a sub-section called Long Distance Art, a dream by a man named Nick Green who finally saw it come to light. Long Distance Art allows people from the festival to communicate together and create something special with one another. Green sometimes plays a part in their matchups but most artists reach out personally.

One collaboration that I love is with a song called "Wild Heart" created by three Canadian artists Anika Johnson, Barbara Johnston, and Suzy Wilde but then sent to Tanzanian dancer Tadhi Alawi who brought it to life. Alawi said doing this project made the distance between Canada and Tanzania almost non-existent. Check it out

Artists refuse to let COVID-19 take music and passion from them. What do you think of these new online collaborations?