Aaron Wilkinson is an award-winning Irish singer songwriter based in Toronto who is currently on lockdown in London. And its Aaron who has created the online environment to enable the musicians, composers and singers to collaborate together wherever they are based and this includes Israel, Palestine, Ireland, Spain, Egypt, India, Turkey, the US, the UK, Portugal and Australia.
Aaron is delighted with the progress “We now have over 80 artists in the team, many professional or semi-professional. We have placed the artists into 9 individual bands. We have tried to have a songwriter, singer and 5/6 different and complimentary musicians in each band. Each group has its own what’s app group for day to day chatting and then a weekly Zoom meeting where we talk and work together as a team. We are using the Bandlab music creation platform that allows us to play any instrument and load it into a track. Band members can add or delete pieces of music or add vocals etc so its very dynamic and great for online collaboration” Aaron, Des Cullen and Shosi Israeli, who together lead the music creative team, sit in on all the band meetings and provide direction and support to the artists.
A highly skilled music producer, Aaron has recorded over 12 albums spanning rock, alternative folk, experimental electronica and traditional Irish music. He reached number 7 in the Canadian charts with his cover of Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line”. Aaron has appeared on television in Europe and North America numerous times. He was recently invited to write a song for The United Way, which he premiered last year at the Bluma Appel Theatre in Toronto. Grammy winning producer Daniel Lanois called his songs “beautiful and tender,” while Maclean’s Magazine wrote “Aaron Wilkinson is taking music in Canada to a new level.”
Aaron is the son of Broadway legend Colm Wilkinson, who starred in the lead Jean Valjean role in the original West End launch of Les Misérables. Together the two have raised millions of dollars for charities, something Aaron is proud of. “It’s always a special moment when the two of us perform together live on stage, helping others”. Aaron is completely dedicated to What About Us. “I try to get involved with projects that I feel are doing positive things in this world.”
Aaron continued “While this cononavirus thing has been so destructive, there has been some positives including us all being aware of the need to protect our planet, the environment and those less well off. For the What About Us team it has enabled us to put in place a musical development process that is really dynamic. We already have over 200 pieces of music written, and a number of those would be a worthy inclusion on any album release”.
For now, the focus is on music exploration, with Aaron and the team seeking diversity and giving everyone the opportunity to explore different styles and alternative interpretations of an emotion or a scene. Later they will focus on music fusion, especially between traditional Irish and Middle East, before narrowing the focus to work coherently with the evolving story.
I’ll leave the last comment to Aaron “It’s a real joy to work with amazingly talented musicians from such different cultural backgrounds. Music has no religion. Music has no politics. Make music not war.”
Aaron continues to tour the World and create music. Check out Aaron singing Gethsemanae on You Tube, a truly beautiful and passionate version.
And for more on Aaron you can visit his website