Chicago Children’s Choir (CCC), a nonprofit organization that inspires and unites youth from diverse backgrounds to become global ambassadors through music, is releasing a new studio album, Long Way Home, the Choir’s latest full-length LP and their first full-length theatrical work since the acclaimed Sita Ram. Long Way Home, a reimagination of Homer's epic poem The Odyssey set in modern day Chicago, tells the story of Ody, a South Side poet who unexpectedly ends up on a magical journey home through Chicago's neighborhoods. The 34-track collection of original compositions will be fully available on all major streaming platforms starting August 17. Proceeds support Chicago Children's Choir’s mission to inspire and change lives through music.
Originally written for the stage, the Long Way Home production sold out five nights at Chicago's historic Studebaker Theater in 2018. The new studio recording captures the passion of the timeless tale while dealing with challenges of modern times and seamlessly integrates a range of home-grown musical styles, from blues to house. True to the album’s celebration of Chicago’s cultural scene, Long Way Home features custom artwork by Chicago-native Hebru Brantley.
Chicago Children’s Choir 2018 production of Long Way Home at Studebaker Theater. Courtesy of Chicago Children’s Choir.
“There’s never been anything like this,” Josephine Lee, CCC President and Artistic Director said. “This love note to the city that has nurtured our organization for 65 years is a testament to the global impact of Chicago’s peerless music scene—and the impact we’ve been able to have through it. Chicago’s youth and its musical culture are its greatest treasures. With this production, the Choir saw an opportunity to use the unmatched power of music and fuse it with Homer’s timeless, beloved epic to deliver a message of hope, unity, and empowerment.”
As with the theatrical performance, CCC collaborated with Chicago's award-winning hip hop musical pioneers Q Brothers Collective who masterfully brought the stage performance to the studio. Many of the original cast were reunited to record Long Way Home, and nearly 100 youth from communities across Chicago performed on the album.
“We’ve been using the hip hop musical form to tell captivating stories for over two decades,” said JQ of the Q Brothers Collective. “But Long Way Home is a one-of-a-kind fusion of Chicago’s wide-ranging musical styles. And what better way to honor a globally cherished story than by paying homage to the city we grew up in, while celebrating its own pioneers of musical genres whose influence can be heard in every corner of the world?"
In the spirit of the Choir’s mission to unite the world through music, the release of this exciting new cast recording will make the magic of Long Way Home available to listeners around the world while they work with the Q Brothers to re-stage the theatrical production in the 2022-2023 season.
TRACKLIST
1. Vocalo Intro
2. Good Morning
3. Freestyle
4. Famous
5. The Rhyme Book
6. Get 'em
7. Penny's Home
8. Turn the Page
9. The Plan
10. Deep Dish Intro
11. Deep Dish Express
12. Beware the Sirens
13. St. Sweetness Intro
14. St. Sweetness Church
15. The Super Soul Shuffle
16. The First Star
17. The Bottom of the Lake
18. Raise up Your House
19. Wolf Point Junction - The Second Star
20. The Alley
21. The Rat Race
22. The Third Star
23. Siren Song
24. Not the Fourth Star
25. Cy's Rib Shack
26. Muddy Cy's Blues
27. Jarvis
28. Long Way Home
29. Back in Ithaca
30. Get 'em Part 2
31. Oxygen
32. Home
33. Vocalo Part 2
34. Chicago Fire
About The Q Brothers Collective
The Q Brothers Collective (Creators, Writers, Composers) is internationally known for its hip hop adaptations of the classics. These productions include Othello: The Remix, Funk It Up About Nothin' (Much Ado), and Dress The Part (Two Gents). The collective has grown beyond founding members GQ and JQ, to include Jackson Doran and Postell Pringle. Together, Q Brothers Collective has written and composed Q Brothers Christmas Carol, ms. estrada (Lysistrata), Rome Sweet Rome (Julius Caesar), Long Way Home (The Odyssey), and more. Q Brothers can typically be found at Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits, performing and teaching kids to love rhyming as much as they do.
For more information about the Q Brothers, please visit QBrothersofficial.com or @qbrothers1 on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
About Chicago Children’s Choir
Founded in Hyde Park in direct response to the Civil Rights Movement in 1956, Chicago Children’s Choir (CCC) has grown from one choir into a vast network of in-school and after-school programs driven by one mission: to inspire and change lives through music. CCC has impacted the lives of more than 50,000 diverse youth throughout its 64-year history. Since its founding, CCC has focused on building programs that reflect the racial and economic diversity of Chicago. Eighty percent of youth served are from low-moderate income homes, with over 4,000 students annually participating completely free of charge. All singers in CCC programs receive some level of subsidy. High school seniors enrolled in CCC have a 100% graduation rate, becoming global ambassadors who carry on CCC’s core values in a wide array of professional fields.
Under the leadership of President and Artistic Director Josephine Lee, Chicago Children’s Choir has achieved new heights and revolutionized the youth choral arts through innovative creative partnerships and new artistic endeavors. The Choir collaborated with GRAMMY Award-winning music director and producer Peter CottonTale on his original song “Together” for Google’s 2020 Year in Search video, which went viral with more than 230 million views. Other recent projects include the PBS national broadcast of the new staged production of Leonard Bernstein’s MASS under the direction of Marin Alsop in July 2018 and 2019 with two frequent creative partners: the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Ravinia Festival; Lyric Opera’s production of Dead Man Walking and Tchaikovsky’s romantic thriller The Queen of Spades with select Chicago Children’s Choir singers cast as the children’s chorus; the world-premiere hip hop musical Long Way Home, written and directed by the renowned Q Brothers Collective, which played to five sold-out houses in 2018; and collaboration on Chance the Rapper’s debut studio album The Big Day (2019) as well as a collaboration on his GRAMMY Award-winning Coloring Book (2016) studio recording and tour performances. CCC has served as a model for youth choirs across the country including Boston Children’s Chorus, Denver Children’s Choir and Indianapolis Children’s Choir.
Learn more at ccchoir.org.