Children urged to enter song competition

The Ark has announced that they are inviting children right across Ireland to be part of a special online collection of 'love songs'. 
One of the programmes which The Ark had to cancel, due to the current Covid-19 measures, was the BIG BANG Dublin! festival, a celebration of music for children. 
One element of that festival was a Love Song installation by Belgian composer Serge Verstock, where children ages 6+ were invited to record their own 'love songs' into 200 love shaped recording devices. 
While that installation had to be cancelled, the team at The Ark love the idea of hearing from the children themselves what is most important to them and today put a call out to invite children to record audio messages at home onto an adult's phone and for the adult to upload them to The Ark, where they can be shared online. 
The first recordings will be made available this Saturday at 11am at ark.ie but children are very welcome to send in their recordings over the next few weeks too.

HOW TO TAKE PART
Go to ark.ie and click on The Ark @ Home and you will see a link to the Love Song page. 
There you will find a worksheet which gives you simple instructions of how to go about coming up with your own short Love Song. Your Love Song can be about your favourite place, colour, pet, food, activity, person or it could simply be your favourite sound. If you play an instrument, you could record that as your Love Song. Try to keep your Love Song short – about 20 to 30 seconds audio is plenty.
When you are ready, ask a grown up to help record your Love Song as an audio file on their phone. Then, using the link you will find on the web page, you can send your audio recording to The Ark. It will then be added to the Love Song virtual installation on ark.ie.
Have fun listening to your own recording and discovering the Love Songs of lots of other children in Ireland in The Ark’s virtual installation, which will be available to listen to online at ark.ie from this Saturday, April 4th, at 11am onwards. 
This initiative is part of The Ark @ Home, which will give children daily opportunities to explore and discover the arts in their own homes over the next few weeks. 
The Ark is delighted, in this way, to continue offering children exciting creative opportunities across the arts, and to celebrate the work of the artists they have worked with, commissioned and continue to support through these very challenging times. 
The Ark is a place where children can discover and love the arts, exploring theatre, music, literature, art, film, dance and more. Over the past 25 years, The Ark, located in the heart of Dublin City, has commissioned, presented and developed work especially for children aged 2-12. Although created for this age group, the productions and events are also adored by adults of all ages! The Ark team continues to play a key role in encouraging artists and other companies to explore the area of creating work for children and sharing their expertise through running continuing professional development sessions for artists and primary school teachers.
The Ark gratefully acknowledges the support of its principal funder the Arts Council and also its other annual supporters: the Department of Education and Skills, Temple Bar Cultural Trust, Dublin City Council, UNESCO Dublin City of Literature. 
@TheArkDublin 

#TheArkAtHome