TV PROGRAMME • Department / Unit Media

The New European Songbook

The New European Songbook - a 2017 multi-platform co-production from the EBU TV Music & Dance Experts' group - celebrates the new music arising from a continent in flux.

The film incorporates newly commissioned songs from six EBU Members, each accompanied by an artistic video concept. The theme for this year's edition was 'Europe', and the musical consequences arising from the phenomenon of migration. In the film, artists discuss their musical collaboration and their new lives in Europe.

Featured artists include former Eurovision Song Contest winner Conchita Wurst performing with Basalt, a group of Syrian musicians whose promising musical career in Damascus was destroyed by war, and, finding themselves by fate reunited in Vienna, reformed the band.

Artists involved in the project were invited to the Edinburgh International Festival to perform their songs live in front of a sold-out audience, performances which were streamed live by the BBC.

Song list:

Small House - Conchita Wurst & Basalt (ORF / Austria)
Departure - Shalan Alhamwy, Rasha Rizk, Benyamin Nuss (WDR / Germany)
Uskundar - musicians from Orpheus XXI project (France 2)
Triste Sina ('Sad Fate') - Demian Cabaud and Carolina (RTP / Portugal)
La Notte Sa ('Only the Night Knows') - Scilla Hess and Markelian Kapidani (RSI / Switzerland)
A Time Will Come - Karine Polwart and Naa Densua Tordzro (BBC / UK)
The Boat That Brought Me - Matthew Herbert, Heidi Vogel and Arian Sadr (BBC / UK)