Alexis Ffrench teams up with filmmaker Ted Evans to release heartfelt and moving new video

This International Day of Sign Languages, classical soul pioneer and pianist Alexis Ffrench has teamed up with director and film-maker Ted Evans, best known for his BIFA nominated short ‘To Know Him’, to create a beautifully moving and thought-provoking new video for Ffrench’s magical ‘One Look Reprise’ composition. Profoundly deaf in one ear and severely deaf in the other, Ted Evans’ visual take on this beautiful and emotive track, featuring creative sign merged with dance in the video, aims to further open up classical music to the deaf community, while highlighting that “sign languages unite us”.

The rising star of the video is the phenomenal dancer and deaf artist Lydia Mackett. Born with severe high-frequency hearing loss, Lydia has been dancing since the age of 3 and performed at the Wembley Euros Final Ceremony in 2021. For ‘One Look’, Lydia communicates the messages of the song through a fusion of lyrical movements and traces of British Sign Language (BSL).



Alexis Ffrench says: “I was delighted to work with Director, Ted Evans, in bringing to life his sweeping vision for ‘One look (Reprise) - amplifying my desire to widen participation in classical music by making it a more inclusive space, where all talents are welcomed and celebrated.”

Ted Evans adds: “I was delighted to work with Alexis on this project and to explore the different relationships we have with music. As a filmmaker I have long been fascinated with music videos and in particular dance, as I often work with deaf actors and I see a lot of correlation in the way we capture movement and visual languages. This was a joy to make and was wonderful to collaborate with such a talented team. I’d love to see more deaf people involved in the making of music videos like ‘One Look Reprise’, not just with the translation of lyrics but with visualisation and exploring different ways of interpreting a song or a concept. Music doesn’t have to be something we only experience with our ears. We also listen with our eyes, our hearts and our minds and filmmaking is a wonderful medium to bring these unique and diverse perspectives together.”

Taking place every year on September 23, proclaimed by the UN General Assembly, International Day of Sign Languages is a chance to support and protect the linguistic identity and cultural diversity of all deaf people and other sign language users. Figures by the British Deaf Association1suggest that more than 151,000 people use BSL in the UK, 87,000 of whom are D/deaf. It was only in 2022, following 19 years of campaigning, that the UK Parliament voted to recognise British Sign Language as a language of Great Britain in law. According to the World Federation2 of the Deaf, there are more than 70 million D/deaf people worldwide.

Ted Evans and Lydia Mackett appear courtesy of Deaf Talent Collective, a consultancy service working with British deaf talent, directors, producers and creative professionals. Founded by Tobi St Clair, DTF also provided BSL consultants & interpreters for the One Look Reprise music video, and bridges the gap between the deaf community and the mainstream media industry.

Beautifully, and unknown to many, sign language does not have a past or a future tense, only the present. The video cleverly uses a technique of rotoscoping and layering multiple frames to create echoes, representing the passing of time.

With more than half a billion global streams, over 11 million YouTube views and as one of the Top 10 most streamed classical artists globally with 1.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify alone, Alexis Ffrench is one of the fastest-growing and most exciting classical artists worldwide. Not afraid to talk about and integrate topics close to his heart into his work, Alexis Ffrench has used his music to discuss diversity, highlight mental health and the challenge of inclusivity in the classical world.

He originally released ‘One Look’, his spine-tingling collaboration with three-time Grammy-nominated pop powerhouse Leona Lewis in June this year. On October 6, he will be bringing his mesmerising live show to London’s Barbican.