Update (8th Feb, 2021) - thanks to everyone who joined us on our Facebook Live event last week to mark World Cancer Day. You can now watch a recording of the event here and you can view the videos from the event below...

_________________________________________________________________________________________Update (11th Jan, 2021) - Philip Clemo has now launched an exclusive edition of digital artworks on Sedition Art from the 'From Silence Into Song' project. All profits from sales will direclty benefit Shout at Cancer and this project.

The imagery in this new collection, directed by Philip Clemo and shot by Ryushi Lindsay, was filmed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the 2020 commemorative events marking the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings. The soundscapes have been formed from diverse sound fragments including B29 bomber engines, Morse code and Japanese songs about the bombings.

You can purchase an orginal artwork here

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Update (20th Oct) - we are enormously grateful to all those who have embarked on all kinds of challenges to raise money for this project:

Thank you to Michael and Miriam Chu for their cylce ride along the Cumbrian coast...

Thank you to Doctors Saravanan Kasirajan, Wasif Jamil and Thomas Moors from Royal Preston Hospital who took on the challenge to walk around the city of Preston, following the Guild Wheel...

And thank you to Jane Rourke, Ear, Nose and Throat nurse took on the challenge to complete 50 lengths in the local swimming pool, despite her frozen shoulder...

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Update (15th Sep) - Emmy-nominated documentary film-maker Bill Brummel recently caught up with the makers of 'From Silence Into Song' - Thomas Moors and Philip Clemo - to talk to them about their groundbreaking project marking the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombs detonated over Japan in 1945...

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Update (8th Sep) - a great new video showing the extraordinary Shout at Cancer choir in full-swing in the midst of Covid-19...

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Update (14th Aug) - Sedition Art has now published an article exploring Philip Clemo's work on 'From Silence Into Song'.

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Update (11th Aug) - on 9th August at 3am BST we were working remotely with our Japanese crew of Ryushi Lindsay and Shane Shimamoto. They were filming and recording using specialist Bruel & Kjaer sensors attached to a tree that survived the atomic bomb detonated over Nagasaki exactly 75 years ago. It didn't all go to plan...

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Update (8th Aug) - our project was featured on BBC Radio's PM programme on the 6th August, exactly 75 years from the detonation of an atomic bomb over Hiroshima. You can hear it here

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After the catastrophic nuclear explosions of 1945 scientists believed that nothing would grow in Hiroshima and Nagasaki for over 75 years. Miraculously, over 200 trees survived the bombs, some as close as hundreds of metres from the explosion epicentres. This project tells their extraordinary stories of resilience and intertwines them with the life-affirming narratives of members of the SHOUT AT CANCER choir. The choir was formed by and for cancer survivors who have had laryngectomies (removal of the voice box) after being treated with radiotherapy: the healing side of the dichotomous legacy of radiation.

Hiroshima today

FROM SILENCE INTO SONG is a great new platform for the choir, significantly raising its international profile and that of the transformative work carried out by the 'Shout at Cancer' charity. This opportunity will mean that the organisation can help many more cancer survivors in the future. Like the trees, our choir members were once silent but they will now be singing together in harmony and spreading their inspiring messages of resilience and hope.

This project has been developed by Dr Thomas Moors at 'Shout at Cancer' with filmmaker & composer Philip Clemo. The production team has been working on the project since the Spring of 2019 and concerts, workshops and installations were lined up for the summer of 2020, including at London's Bloomsbury Theatre, Glastonbury Festival and World Choir Games in Ghent, Belgium. But Covid-19 had other plans! It was a big blow but we have now dusted ourselves off and got on with restructuring and rescheduling. Our British production team can't visit Japan right now but our Japanese team will be visiting Hiroshima and Nagasaki to mark the anniversaries of the bombs in early August. They will film and make sound recordings of the survivor trees at the exact times the bombs were dropped 75 years earlier. The capturing of these anniversaries will mark the starting point of our production but we still have a long way to go and splitting our teams has meant a significant increase in costs for this project. We appreciate your support to complete this exciting and transformative project.

Survivor tree in Hiroshima

We will be filming the trees using cutting-edge technology, including infra-red & thermal imaging cameras, illustrating the life force that enabled them to survive a nuclear bomb. While trees aren't known for their musicality, if you listen hard enough, and with the right equipment, you can capture their individual 'voices'. Working with audio pioneers Bruel & Kjaer and a sound specialist who works with IRCAM, Centre Pompidou, and using specialist mics & sensors, we will record surface and environmental sounds from the trees and even the clicks and pops of sap rising. What might a tree have to say at 8.15 am on the 6th of August, 2020, exactly 75 years after surviving an atomic bomb blast? We will find out. This tree sound palette will then be used to develop compositions with the 'Shout at Cancer' choir, integrating their voiced and unvoiced sounds into new collaborative compositions.

Hiroshima cenotaph

These new compositions will be presented in performances and workshops online and at concerts in London, Hastings and at the Glastonbury Festival. The choir will perform with the powerful visual and sonic presence of the survivor trees and with special guests and creative partners including beatboxer REEPS ONE. We will target a wide audience including cancer survivors and people with disabilities as well as contemporary music, film & arts followers. The 'From Silence Into Song' project will also be shown through gallery installations in the UK, Belgium and Japan.

Lantern in Hiroshima marking 75th bomb anniversary

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Founded in 2015 by DR THOMAS MOORS , 'Shout at Cancer' is the only charity in the world specialising in speech recovery and social reintegration after a laryngectomy. It focuses on rebuilding lost confidence by challenging perceptions and redefining the boundaries of ability through voice training, singing, acting and beatboxing techniques. Dr Moors has brought together a team of opera singers, actors, speech therapists and laryngectomy patients to incorporate music, acting and art into post-laryngectomy rehabilitation and social reintegration. He received the Points of Light Award from the British Prime Minister, Theresa May in March 2017.

The 'Shout at Cancer' choir has performed at venues around Europe, including the Belgian Embassy, Royal College of Surgeons, The Barbican and Victoria and Albert Museum in London and at Theatre at The Sea, an international festival in Ostend, Belgium. The choir has been delivering an inspirational message to the laryngectomy community and to a broader audience thanks to coverage on national television in the U.K., Belgium, France, Russia and global news services like BBC World and The Guardian. It is currently collaborating on two opera projects at Garsington Opera and Snape Maltings (Funded by Arts Council England, UCL Culture, Snape Maltings, 'Shout at Cancer' and private donors) and has been invited to perform a ceremony concert at the World Choir Games (aka the Olympics for Choirs) in 2021.

In 2020, Peabody Award winning and 5 times Emmy nominated director Bill Brummel, released a feature-length documentary about the Shout at Cancer choir: 'Can You Hear My Voice?' The trailer can be viewed here

PHILIP CLEMO is a UK-based multi-disciplinary artist, working in film, composition, sound-design, and live performance. His work, described as mesmerising (The London Times) and transcendent (BBC), has been shown around the world, including at international film festivals and the V&A Museum and Eden Project in the UK. His multi-sensory Breath Project, which he has presented in TEDx and TED talks in the UK and New York, explores our relationship with the diverse environments we inhabit. Philip performs internationally with his multi-sensory Dream Maps project, with his live band interacting with imagery from his Breath Project.

© Thomas Moors/Philip Clemo

This project is being made with the generous support of SEAN & JENNY RIDDELL with