Soprano Samantha Crawford has created a new programme, Freedom Cries Out, telling stories of displaced people and refugees, accompanied by pianist Berrak Dyer. The songs touch on themes of Homeland, Exile, War, Family, Hope and New Beginnings. 

Freedom Cries Out features The Names of the Earth, a song cycle by Raymond Yiu, especially commissioned for the programme, setting stories from contemporary refugee accounts in collaboration with the other side of hope, a UK-based literary magazine edited by immigrants & refugees. In July 2025, Samantha and Berrak gave the world premiere of The Names of the Earth at Holy Sepulchre Church, London.

The programme also includes Shawn Okpebholo’s song cycle Words Like Freedom, setting poems of Langston Hughes, and Jake Heggie’s These Strangers. These cycles sit alongside selected songs by Errollyn Wallen, Cecilia McDowall, Elisabeth Lutyens and amongst others. 

Freedom Cries Out features two newly created songs from arias in Roxanna Panufnik’s opera, Dalia (Garsington Opera, 2022), telling the story of a Syrian refugee girl as she crosses the Mediterranean Sea. 

Samantha is grateful to The Vaughan Williams Foundation, Finzi Friends and The Nicholas Boas Charitable Trust for their support. 

Freedom Cries Out is performed in partnership with Refugee Education UK and UK Welcomes Refugees. The programme will be recorded and released as an album with Delphian Records in 2026.