New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ Peacebeliever Official Website) - To mark John Lennon's 70th birthday as well as the 30th anniversary of his assassination, the organization Peacebeliever will release a new version of his classic "
Give Peace A Chance" to raise money for their foundation. The single will be available for purchase on both www.peacebeliever.com and iTunes.
The project involves more than 20 musicians and more than 100 children around the world on this updated version of the song, which adds a new verse performed in Spanish, the first time in history that the John Lennon estate has given someone the rights to do so.
Famed Cuban band Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club are joined on the recordings by U.K. sensation Newton Faulkner; Supertramp's Roger Hodgson; 10cc members Graham Gouldman and Eugene Hideaway; Australian singer Nik Phillips, the first westerner to crack the Top Five on the mainland domestic Chinese music charts; Omara Portuondo, who starred in Wim Wenders' award-winning documentary Buena Vista Social Club and Herb Armstrong, grandson of jazz legend Louis Armstrong. Other artists involved include Natalie Pa'A Pa, lead singer with Australian urban roots band Blue King Brown, ARIA Award winner Katie Noonan, Australian children's TV host and Australian Children's Music Foundation founder Don Spencer, Australian country music singer-songwriter Ange Whiteley along with her four children, and 80 students from Byron Bay Steiner School and Matraville Soldier's Settlement Public School.
All proceeds from the single will go to Peacebeliever, an organization designed to support music education in schools, a cause near and dear to the heart of Peacebeliever founder Yolanda Vega, who moved to Australia from her native Spain in 1971 with her parents at the age of six, learning how to speak by singing the songs she heard while watching TV Shows like Sesame Street.
"I believe that music is very important in the development of any child and I learned a great deal thanks to music," she says. "Knowing that many children are not able to have access to music during their education both saddens and alarms me."
A journalist for several publications, Vega became Youth Editor for the top-selling newspaper in Australia, contributing a weekly color cartoon and becoming an advocate for children's rights. A Children's Music Judge for ARIA, the Australian version of the Grammys, Yolanda has been involved in a number of not-for-profit organizations, including Save the Children Foundation, the AIDS Council of Australia and the Abused Child Trust.
"My Christmas wish is to sell one million singles online this season, and for Peacebeliever to raise money globally for children around the world," concludes Vega.
"Give Peace A Chance" will be available on iTunes and www.peacebeliever.com on December 8, 2010.
