PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Tenth-graders from Hill-Freedman World Academy in East Mount Airy are the subject of a new documentary debuting on HBO Tuesday night.
EGOT recipient and recording artist John Legend is one of the executive producers behind “Stand Up & Shout: Songs From a Philly High School.” The film chronicles students who are taking a music class after returning from two years of the pandemic.
“All the things we’ve been talking about with kids, feeling isolated, feeling like they can’t express themselves … the arts are there to help remedy those issues, and they provide this way of collaboration,” said Legend.
Students wrote songs about everything from violence to falling in love. The film shows the healing power of music and how it can help foster change.
“Given the sense of isolation that people were feeling during this time, it was really timely for us to celebrate people coming together to create something together, and I think that’s really the beauty in the power of this film,” said Legend.
“I know that long after I’m gone, these songs that I’ve written are going to be a testament of who I was in this world, and they last forever,” he continued. “They’re eternal, and so these kids got to create something eternal. This film is going to exist forever as a document of where they were in their lives at that moment.”
Executive producer Mike Jackson said this project allowed kids to have a voice.
“We felt our brand, our platform would really be an enhancement to the project and a way to share the message about music education and the need for music education and propelling that message forward,” he added.
The film premieres on HBO at 9 p.m. Tuesday and is available to stream on Max.