Svalbard, Arctic – British six-time Grammy winner, Jacob Collier, has collaborated with Norwegian alt-pop superstar, AURORA, for the first time in a magical performance in the Arctic, released today. They perform a haunting mash-up of their two songs, A Rock Somewhere and The Seed, on a platform floating amidst icebergs in front of the imposing glacier, Sveabreen, Svalbard. The creative performance was delivered in partnership with Greenpeace International from the organisation’s ship Arctic Sunrise.

Watch the Arctic performance on YouTube. Visuals from the Arctic are available in the Greenpeace Media Library.

Jacob Collier said: “The moment I heard about an opportunity to jump aboard one of the legendary Greenpeace ships, head to Arctic waters, and sing a song with one of my favourite artists next to a mighty glacier, I knew I was signing up for something special. What I hadn’t foreseen was quite how transformative and moving the experience would be, and how much it would teach me – musically, energetically and environmentally.

“I was bowled over at the sheer magnitude of the Arctic – and also its deep fragility. We’ve lost two thirds of all the Arctic summer ice in the last forty years. It’s a shadow of its former self – yet it’s not too late for us to help.

“We are all creatures of the Earth, and rely so deeply upon its health for our own. The oceans are our primary ally in preventing truly disastrous consequences of climate change from taking hold. The consequences of deep sea mining are too disastrous to mention – we urgently must protect the world’s oceans – and act NOW before it’s too late.”

AURORA said: “We need to understand, the more we interfere with, or the more we violate, nature we will have a lesser chance to survive the consequences of our actions. We already know the large impact every choice we’ve made so far has had on the health of this planet. And therefore the health of every life that lives on it. I don’t understand why we cannot let things be. Our curiosity has turned sour, and now I feel like we’re only looking to dominate – take the land, take everything it has to offer before anyone else does it.”

“We compete with each other as nations but we forget the one thing we all have in common. If we keep interfering with the few untouched areas of this Earth, there will be no future. We have to stop deep sea mining. I hope our Prime Minister and the other world leaders will do what is right. Not for them, but for the children of the children.”

Dr Laura Meller, Protect the Oceans campaign, Project Lead of Greenpeace Nordic said: “AURORA and Jacob’s eerily beautiful voices echoing around the glacier and the icebergs  is such a reminder of the fragility of our planet, and why we work so hard to protect it. Centuries of human extraction have pushed ocean ecosystems to the brink of collapse. 

“We won a historic Global Ocean Treaty last year, which keeps our goal of protecting 30 percent of the world’s oceans by 2030 alive. But governments now want to mine the deep sea. We won’t let that happen. We hope this collaboration will inspire millions of people around the world to join our mission to protect the oceans but governments must act now to protect 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030 and introduce a moratorium on deep sea mining.”

Worldwide, millions have signed Greenpeace’s petitions calling for ocean protection. Currently 32 countries support a deep sea mining moratorium, precautionary pause or ban on deep sea mining in the international seabed, which covers almost 60 percent of the blue planet. 

ENDS

Contacts:

Greenpeace UK press office: [email protected], +44 (0)20 7865 8255

Greenpeace International Press Desk: [email protected], +31 (0) 20 718 2470 (available 24 hours)

Notes for editors: 

AURORA – With over a million album sales, 2.6 billion streams and her inaugural The Gods We Can Touch book selling 14,000 copies in less than a year, AURORA is pulling in a bigger audience than ever before.

Summer 2024 saw her performing at internationally renowned festivals such as Roskilde and Glastonbury Festival, and she will in autumn embark on her EU & UK headline shows as part of her global What Happened To The Earth? Tour, which will see over 300,000 fans across more than twenty-five countries. This is only the start of what could be the most exciting era for AURORA. Her new book What Happened to the Heart?, named after her critically acclaimed fourth studio album, will offer an intimate look into the creative process behind her recent UK Top 10 album. 

Jacob Collier – Jacob Collier is a multi award-winning singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and educator. Recognised by audiences, critics and fellow musicians alike as one of the most gifted young artists of modern times, Jacob Collier already boasts a seemingly endless list of achievements including six Grammy wins – which saw him become the first British act in history to win four Grammys for each of his first four albums – along with 11 Grammy nominations including Album of the Year in 2021.

Exploding onto the global stage with the viral success of his multi-frame, multi-instrumental YouTube covers, Collier caught the attention of Quincy Jones and under his mentorship released his debut album, In My Room, in 2016. That natural pull towards musical collaboration went on to inform Collier’s plans for his ensuing four-part Djesse series of albums, featuring an incredible array of collaborators, and musical themes that encompass everything from orchestral composition to folk songwriting, R&B, rap and pop. His roster of collaborators includes Coldplay’s Chris Martin and UK superstar rapper Stormzy. In his own projects, Collier has worked with an unpredictable cast of artistic powerhouses, from Malian singer Oumou Sangaré to T-Pain, Ty Dolla $ign, Daniel Caesar, Tori Kelly and Mahalia (to name a few).