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After a group of students from Parkland, Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School crisscrossed the nation this summer on their “Road to Change” tour, they will now lift their voices before the November midterm elections on an inspiring collection of songs titled Raise Your Voice: The Sound of Student Protest.<\/p>\n
The 11-track album, due Oct. 5 through the nonprofit Little Village Foundation, features new songs and spoken-word pieces composed and performed by the students of the high school that was the site of a deadly mass shooting in February that left 17 students and teachers dead.<\/p>\n
Proceeds from the album recorded in response to that shooting and other deadly assaults at schools across the nation will be donated to the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety organization. On the day of the album’s release, the students will perform live at San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival on Oct. 5. Among the songs included in the collection is “Shine,” the soaring, inspirational track written and performed by students Sawyer Garrity and Andrea Pe\u00f1a and others at a CNN town hall in February, just weeks after the shooting.<\/p>\n
“The courage of these students is amazing. Everyone participating on the album is incredibly talented and their hearts are filled with love for their fellow students,” said Little Village Foundation founder Jim Pugh in s statement announcing the release. “Raise Your Voice is a cross-section of America. It includes young artists standing up from Morro Bay in California to a music class in New York City, but it’s very focused in its sense of purpose. Raise Your Voice features a wide range of students who want to share their music at such a critical moment in our country. Raise Your Voice gives them an opportunity to have their voices out there, and to encourage other students to rise up. These students just want to keep our schools safe, and we feel this music will have the potential to strike at what’s going on in America.\u201d – By Gil Kaufman<\/p>\n