You know, life can be a really tricky thing when you go over the years in your mind, how certain memories speak to us and we never know why until we receive ubiquitous signs of our past — at times guiding our future. As I said in my first interview with UK based Singer/Songwriter Tony Moore, about four years ago….
“When I was in high school during our Christmas concert, I wore a sparkly indigo-blue bowtie with a matching cummerbund, 12 pleated white tuxedo shirt, iridescent black pants and a covered denim jacket, ripped into a vest adorned with studs all over the front, on the back in shiny square studs spelt the name of the rock band “IRON MAIDEN” in large block letters. If someone had told me, back then, approximately 22 years later that I would have the good fortune to interview one of the original members of Iron Maiden, I would have cackled with laughter and called them CRAZY!”
I’d honestly felt as though my life had come full circle. I’d been listening to music by Tony Moore for the majority of my life and to be able to interview him. I genuinely felt extremely honoured.
The reason that I am taking this little delightful trip down memory lane is because, I wanted to share something truly sensational that had occurred during the European Games Closing Ceremony in Minsk, Belarus on Saturday June 29 at around 8:00 pm their time. I was able to see through the power of live streaming via olympicchannel.com Tony Moore with guitar in hand and Belrusian Singer Kristina Sventlichnaya on stage at the Dinamo Stadium. As they engaged all 20,000 audience members with a truly unbelievable performance of Tony’s original song specifically written for the 2019 European Games “We Are The Light.”
My daughter looked at me halfway through the performance and said, “are you crying?” and I totally broke down. Tony & Kristina we’re singing with every fibre of their beings – it was so enjoyable and emotional to watch. I can imagine being inside the stadium the energy that this spectacular duo emanated light across it’s vast audience.
Yesterday, Tony posted his press release with many details regarding his journey from his September 2018 visit to Belarus to his most recent debacle attempting to make it to Belarus in time for his actual performance. I asked Tony today if I had permission to post his press release directly on the blog –since I was moved by it so much. I can’t believe so many obstacles and so much pain endured, and Tony found a way to prevail in a glorious light.
07-01-2019BRITISH SINGER/SONGWRITER TONY MOORE WRITES AND PERFORMS KEY SONG FOR THE CLOSING CEREMONY OF THE EUROPEAN GAMES 2019 IN MINSK, BELARUS.
Email: tony@tonymooremusic.com
Website: http://www.tonymooremusic.com
In September 2018, Tony Moore was invited to Belarus to be a Music Ambassador for the press launch of the 2nd edition European Games, to be held in Minsk June 2019. Whilst he was there, Tony was inspired to write a song for the games after seeing the official tagline of event, “Bright Year, Bright You”. Fast forward 9 Months and he and Belrusian singer Kristina Sventlichnaya performed his composition “We Are The Light” at the closing ceremony to a full house of more than 20,000 in the Dinamo Stadium as well as to 127 countries taking the live TV feed across half the world.
The song was written to reflect the struggle we all share to achieve our dreams in life and how, together, we can use our positive energy to shine brightly and create unity. Tony met Minsk based singer Kristina Sventchlinaya when he was in Belarus in 2018 and wrote the song to be performed as a duet with her after hearing her unique and powerful voice.
Tony says “I was honoured to be invited to perform at this incredible event. It’s the biggest thing I have ever done in my life and I was thrilled to share my music with such an amazing audience including Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenka and Russia’s President Vladamir Putin,”
In a weird twist of fate the songs powerful message mirrored an almost unbelievable set of challenges that Tony went through to actually get to the final performance. On the Wednesday before the final Sunday night ceremony, he collapsed on his bathroom floor unable to stand or walk and passed out just after managing call the emergency services. He was rushed to hospital and diagnosed with Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo and told that it might take up to two weeks or more to recover. Determined not to miss the games, he slept almost solidly for two days trying to rest and recuperate enough to fly to Minsk on the coming Saturday.
By some miracle, he found the strength to get to Heathrow airport only to find that the flights booked for him had a problem with the paperwork and he couldn’t take them, so the organisers managed to find an alternative flight via Barcelona that night, which would arrive at 5am on the morning of the ceremony meaning he would miss all the rehearsals. However the panic was on as he now had get from Heathrow to Gatwick in heavy traffic with little time to spare, only to find, when he got there, that the Barcelona flight was badly delayed.
Eventually Tony arrived in Spain to get the connecting flight to Belarus but had so little time left that he was forced to run across the concourse to the departure gate with only one minute to spare before they closed the gate which, had he not made it, would have meant he’d have missed getting to the games altogether.
As if all that wasn’t enough, on arriving in Minsk he found that neither his hand built white guitar (specially made for the event) nor his unique stage jacket (designed by Amanda Cannon) had made it to Belarus. So in keeping with the lyrics of the song, he “ignored the pain and pushed on through” finding a local clothes shop that was open on a Sunday where be bought some white jeans and a top and was ready to sing his heart out with Kristina for the entire Stadium.
“We Are The Light” was produced and mixed by Tony and is currently available as digital single worldwide on all download and streaming formats, featuring Kristina Sventchlinaya and an orchestration arranged by Andrey Zubetts.
Tony Moore was an original member of Iron Maiden and later went on to play keyboards in the band Cutting Crew ( I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight) – For the last 20 years he has championed new and emerging talent and has created stages to help young artists develop, including Paolo Nutini, Ed Sheeran, James Bay, James Morrison and many more. He is currently working with new singer iLO, whilst constantly writing, recording and touring in his own right.
CCIQ Press 