By Clare BruceFriday 11 Oct 2019MusicReading Time: 2 minutes
A moving children’s-choir rendition of the Linkin Park song One More Light, has gone viral on Youtube – after it was recorded in memory of a choir member who died in tragic circumstances.
The ‘One Voice Children’s Choir’, a choir of 140 children and teenagers in Utah, USA, recorded the song after choir director Masa Fukada learnt that a former member, Megan Knorr, had taken her own life. Megan was one of the choir’s earliest members.
Devastated at the news, Fukada decided to make the video, including footage of choir members holding life-affirming signs. The signs bear messages like, “There is Hope”, “Choose to Live”, “Choose to Stay”, “I Care”, and “There are Great Days Ahead”.
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The video, with close to 1.5 million views at the time of writing, was posted in Youtube with the following message: “This video is meant to inspire anyone within the sound of our voices, or reach of our YouTube Channel, that Life Is Worth Living! Choose to live. Choose to Stay.” It was dedicated to the memory of Megan and to USA’s Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month.
The original Linkin Park song One More Light was originally written for a friend of the band who had died from cancer, but sadly took on a new meaning after the band’s lead singer Chester Bennington took his own life in 2017.
Birthed Out of the 2002 Winter Olympics
The One Voice Children’s Choir first gained popular appeal with their viral rendition of the Disney song Let It Go, recorded during their stint on TV’s America’s Got Talent.
Masa Fukuda initially formed the choir in 2001 to record an album commemorating the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, as he had composed one of the event’s songs. After the recording, some of the students wanted to keep singing together, so Fukuda kept the choir running; it’s now in its 19th year.
Members are aged from 4 to 17, and they perform a wide variety of music at dozens of live events every year, as well as recording songs for their Youtube channel. The channel has amassed over 225 million views.
Some of their best-known videos to date include:
- Imagine Dragons’ Believer (39.8 million views)
- Mercy Me’s I Can Only Imagine (7.1 million views)
- A Million Dreams from The Greatest Showman (18 million views)
- When You Believe from Prince of Egypt (16.6 million views)
- Rhianna’s Diamonds (51.3 million views)
- Coldplay’s Something Just Like This (13.8 million views)
- Let It Go from Frozen (13 million views)
- Clean Bandit’s Symphony (10.5 million views)
- Cyndi Lauper’s True Colours (7.7 million views)
- Keala Setle’s This is Me from The Greatest Showman (4.3 million views)
- Pink’s What About Us (2.2 million views)