Music – free to download

These pieces are all released under a Creative Commons licence or similar arrangement. Click here for music available to purchase. If you’re using these songs, please let the composers know about performances if you can! To add new music, fill in this Google form to send us your listing.

Browse the whole list, or click below for lists divided by type of choir (these sub-pages also include some reasonably priced music):
Unison songs
2-3 part songs
4-part songs (SSAA, ATBarB or SATB, and larger choirs)
Music for worship (hymns and anthems)

+ indicates a cappella pieces (no accompaniment, voices only)

Choirs For Ecocide Law – this project is a complete 60-minute concert which is free to download and perform. To learn more about the project, watch our webinar here (recorded 20th Sept 2023). All 15 songs in the concert are available for unison voice(s), 2-part upper voices (would also work for 2-part lower voices or mixed groups) or SATB choirs, and you can perform a mixture of formats in a single concert (e.g. a children’s choir singing two pieces, an SATB choir singing the majority, a solo singer for two pieces, and some for a chamber group). Find out about our upcoming Choirs For Ecocide Law concert in Finland in April 2024, with over 1000 singers!

+ New! Litany Of Action – music by Isobel Davies, words by Rebecca Solnit (used with permission) and Rainer Maria Rilke. For SATB choir a cappella (brief divisi in each part). Hear a piano demo. Creative Commons licensed – Isobel is happy for anyone to download the score and perform the piece.

+ New! Leave It In The Ground – by Dave Camlin, for SATB choir (with optional guitar). “The song is free to anyone who wants to sing it – pay it forward to the planet.”
“You can burn it in a furnace, you can throw it on the fire,
You can stand around and cheer as the flames grow higher,
A bumper bag of carbon might fetch a thousand pound,
But the best thing you can do with coal is leave it in the ground.”

+ New! We’re On A Mission (Just Stop Oil) – for 4-part choir, four short repeated phrases that work together to form harmonies. Ideal for protests and marches.

+ New! WARNING, a canon in up to 11 parts that can be sung during protests (any voices) but will also work as a concert piece. Audience participation would work well.

+ New! If The World Were Ours – a song about planning ahead, and getting away from the kind of short-term thinking that has brought about the climate crisis. For SABar choir (available for ATB, SSA or TBarB on request), easy block harmonies.

+ New! rising – written in July 2023, over the course of four days in which the measured worldwide average temperature broke the previous heat record every single day, this piece is intense, repetitive and discomfiting. For SATB choir with solo quartet (AATB or similar voicing), on the tricky side.

S.O.S. From The Kids and Stand As One – two free songs written by members of S.O.S. From The Kids, a UK-based children’s choir.

Cool Heads and Cycle And Recycle – two songs with texts by Derek Roberts set to music by Tom Cunningham. With a vocal range of an octave or less and available in three different keys, these should be suitable for any choirs including beginners, and have been used in primary schools by the National Youth Choir of Scotland. Click here to download scores and hear audio demos – Tom Cunningham is happy to make these songs available free of charge.

Feeling the Heat – words and music by Sheena Phillips. Catchy tune, range E4-C5, with a few challenging rhythms, and also used by NYCoS, this should suit most school choirs.

Animals, a song about biodiversity and how humans are destroying it, but with a hopeful ending, that’s particularly suitable for primary school choirs, with words by Brian Bilston and music by Chris Hutchings. For 2-part choir and piano – click here to see the score and hear a new recording.

+ The Political Songster, a project by Trad Arts Team, has over a hundred songs available (some are rewritten lyrics for familiar melodies, some are completely original), mostly as lead sheets with chords – many deal with climate or mention the environment. Click here for songs pre-2021 and here for songs from 2021 onwards.

Why We Sing – for 2-part choir and piano, by Chris Hutchings. Suitable for children’s choirs or any adult choir: written to explain why we think singing can change the world. Hear the performance from our March 2023 concert.

The Rules – for 2-part choir and piano, by Chris Hutchings. An angry piece about who is to blame for climate change, and how laws don’t currently prevent companies and countries from harming the environment. Watch the world premiere from our March 2023 concert. This is part of the project “Choirs For Ecocide Law”.

A free arrangement of Louis Armstrong’s classic What A Wonderful World from Mark DeLisser (who arranged the music for the recent royal wedding) is available from Music Declares Emergency, originally released to raise awareness around COP26 in October 2021. Download the music here. The choral arrangement is available for SSA or SATB choir (with piano).

+ While Sitting Here, Remember Me (SSA) – lyrics and music by Jamie Klenetsky Fay. A piece about memorial benches being covered by rising seas. Contact Jamie via the form on her website to receive a free score.

+ Seawall (SSAATTBB) – lyrics and music by Jamie Klenetsky Fay, about the need to build seawalls to protect our cities. Contact Jamie via the form on her website to receive a free score. Hear the UK premiere from our March 2023 concert.

Where will we go? (SA and piano) – lyrics and music by Jamie Klenetsky Fay, about fleeing climate change. Contact Jamie via the form on her website to receive a free score.

+ Send Lazarus (SATB or ATBarB choir, easy, no divisi, no high ranges, 2020). Words by David Ervin, music by Chris Hutchings. Free for fundraising or other non-commercial use. Virtual choir recording and score follower video on YouTube, or hear the first live performance from our March 2023 concert.

+ Let Them Not Say (SSAATTBB choir, quite tricky, high ranges needed). Click here for a virtual choir recording. Words by Jane Hirshfield can be found here. Download the choir-only score or a score with a piano reduction.

+ Another World Is Possible (flexible 5-part choir, fairly easy). Lyrics based on a quote by Arundhati Roy, music by Jane Lewis. Hear the performance from our March 2023 concert.

+ Leave The Oil In The Ground (SATB choir, easy), by Jane Lewis of Edinburgh-based choir Protest In Harmony, set to a 17th-century tune. Practice tracks available for all parts. Hear it in our March 2023 concert.

+ Nature Songs by Penny Stone – eight easy songs for flexible choirs in 2-4 parts. The set includes “Two More Minutes of Sunlight” which was featured in the Choirs For Climate concert in Edinburgh in March 2023 – click here to hear it on YouTube.

+ Finding Our Way: Songs for the Anthropocene by Anne-Marie Sanderson: four pieces for upper voices (2 for SSA, 1 each for SSAA and SAT). You can see a virtual choir version of all 4 pieces here – contact Anne-Marie for scores. There is a suggested donation of £2 per copy if you can afford it. Hear three of the pieces in our March 2023 concert.

Hear the Cry of the Sea by Peter Burton talks about our love of open spaces and nature, in this case seabirds. For SSA or TTB with piano. Watch a video and view the score. Peter is happy to waive the purchase price if his works are being used for a climate change concert or similar. Buy the piece or contact him here.

Extinction Calypso by Karen MacAulay. For SATB choir and piano, or for voice and piano: a single-voice version can be heard below.
Download the SATB and piano score
Download the voice and piano score
Hear it in our March 2023 concert, or listen to a solo voice version below:

Ruth Carlyle · Extinction Calypso – Karen McAulay, 2019

+ Klimachor – Sing Against The Climate Crisis. Most of Klimachor’s songs are re-worded versions of well-known pop songs which can be sung using karaoke backing tracks or by choirs who already know the songs they are based on. There are also some original choral works which are free, including “World On Our Shoulders” (SATB + soli, as recorded by the Real Group); “Earth” (large choir + soli, as recorded by Imogen Heap); and “One Planet For All” (SATB).

+ Songs For A Better Planet by Dave Camlin – the “Voices Raised” series linked here has a wide choice of choral pieces on environmental themes, especially “A Better Planet”, “Do It Now”, “Fellowship…” and “Inversnaid” (all SATB).

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name, by Peter Burton, for SATB choir and piano/organ, medium difficulty. A setting of Psalm 8, about stewardship of the world. Peter is happy to waive the purchase price if his works are being used for a climate change concert or similar; contact him for details.

+ Enough is Enough by Oi Musica, Karine Polwart and Heather MacLeod, a song for COP26 available in many flexible arrangements. Watch a video and download scores (Creative Commons licensed).

It’s A Beautiful, Wonderful World (choir and piano – can be unison throughout, optional 3-part harmony). Words and music by Gordon Thornett. Permission is given by the composer for choirs to make copies of this piece to perform in order to raise awareness of our responsibility to care for Planet Earth. Listen to a demo recording on YouTube. Click here to download the score.

+ Fallen Feathers (flexible 3-part choir, easy, 2020). Words and music by Ben See, in collaboration with a group of 10 year old nature lovers. Download versions for 3-part children’s choir or 3-part adult choir (high/middle/low voices). If you are using this piece, please make a donation to Black2Nature if you can; you can also support the composer directly. Watch Ben’s video to see how the piece can be developed.

+ Climate Change Songs by Sheena Phillips – four protest songs all set to well known tunes. Includes Down By The RoadsideGoing GreenThere Is A Place Called Planet Earth (version for orchestra and choir available to buy here) and The Truth Is Marching On. Suitable for any type of choir.

+ Andrew Downes’ piece World Anthem (words by his daughter Paula) is available for free here (flexible 3-part, a cappella). Paula has also created educational resources around many of Andrew’s climate-change-related pieces, all available here.

+ Justice Choir – many pieces from the Justice Choir Songbook (available free but donations are encouraged) are suitable for climate action. Recommended: Another World Is PossibleBe The ChangeThe Water Song (coming soon – hear on YouTube). Also includes Sheena Phillips’ There Is A Place Called Planet Earth. Justice Choir have also produced a playlist of 15 SONGS YOU CAN SING ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE on YouTube (all can be learned by ear from the videos).

Thanks to Climate Choir Melbourne for posting the next five entries here:

+ Extinction Rebellion Songs – Crowd songs, chants and XR choir resources

+ Jane Coker’s songs and chants for climate protests

+ Carbon Canaries – a song resource enabling people everywhere to sing out for climate action (35 songs)

+ Crisis Carols – a Facebook group which shares witty Christmas Carol re-writes, many eco-themed

+ Extinction Rebellion Song Folder – more free pieces