Our body, the space around us and our voice in the room are all subtly interconnected: if one changes, the other two are affected. The focus of this workshop is to become specialists of this triangular relationship, to be moved and transformed by it while we instantly compose musical performances in space.
When we improvise with our voices, sometimes sounds emerge which are language-like, or even very much like comprehensible words. How do we treat this moment when singers are on the verge of becoming improvising poets? And also the other way around: What kind of music is hidden in existing words and texts?
Find them in our AGENDA on the new website to read more about it, and to inscribe and reserve your place.
Upcoming in May, and this time in Berlin, Germany, is the 2020 edition of WhatIIIF? – a meeting of improvisers from all disciplines interested in improvisation research.
Genetic Choir has been standing at the cradle of this festival and hosted the 2017 edition in Amsterdam, after which being involved in generating two more editions in London (UK, 2018) and in Gothenborg (SE, 2019).
Now you are invited to join us in Berlin!
21 May 2020 (13:00) – 24 May 2020 (13:00) – WhatIIIF Berlin 2020
…
IIIF stands for International Interdisciplinary Improvisation Festival and the WhatIIIF? gatherings/meetings/festivals are dedicated to attempting to answer the absurd question: Can improvisation be documented and reflected upon (and how should that be done)?
This years theme is: Improvisation and Memory
The website improvisation.wiki is a constant working space and open library of improvisation aspects. It gets energized through the yearly meetings of WhatIIIF? and everyone is invited to contribute to it through these yearly gatherings, or at any other time, from their own improvisation practice and perspective.
We invite now all interested improvisers to join us from 21-24 May 2020 in Berlin to take this utopian idea of a shared language for interdisciplinary improvisation practice further. Our hosts this year are the Exploratorium Berlin and Impro-Per-Arts.
Happy New Year and welcome in Genetic Choir’s 2020 !
We have a full year ahead, but let’s start slowly and with January only… 🙂
13 January – introduction workshop for volunteers (in Dutch) for the Huis van Lied en Geluid project in the Flevohuis, Amsterdam –> more info
18+19 January – MELODY MAKERS – a Genetic Choir weekend workshop about weaving melodies and story in improvisation singing –> more info
24 January – the spring block of Friday Morning Sessions is starting up! You can still join, if you have done a Genetic Choir workshop before (and otherwise, you can come on 18+19 January and join as well 🙂 ) –> more info
All these things you can find on the agenda of our BRAND NEW WEBSITE!
With anticipation, we expected our audience in the wide, dark space of the Dominicuskerk, last Sunday evening, for our premiere of (Non)Corpus: God.
Lamps came closer to us, each audience member carrying one, finding their place on the wooden floor, on red pillows and on randomly placed chairs.
What followed was an intense concert experience for both performers and audience, with a beautiful, silent intermission (with nourishment for the second half of the journey) and (the acoustics of) the church building as the most intimate companion.
It ended as well in the most refreshing, magical, held silence between singers and audience we have experienced yet. A silence in which all the music that passed by in the previous hour reverberated in the air and in the people present.
Like one audience member said to us afterwards: “I was so much in the experience after the concert, I didn’t want to leave!”
Coming Saturday, we are doing it one more time. Grab your chance for this experience and reserve:
On the Dutch national news radio – NPO Radio 1 – the Genetic Choir will appear today between 16:15 and 17:00. There will be an interview with singers Jeannette Huizinga, Yanki Bicakci, Irene Rametta and Thomas Johannsen, and we will do also some instant improvising/composing in the mobile send truck of Radio 1 that will park for us near Amsterdam Central Station today (a stone throw away from the Dominicuskerk).
Talkhost Naeeda Aurangzeb will be discussing with us the (Non)Corpus: God project and the possibility of celebrating the intangible, across religious / non-religious borders (on Christmas Eve 🙂 )
UPDATE: you can listen now to the interview we gave via the Soundcloud link below.
NRC Handelsblad and Radio 4 have put the upcoming premiere of (Non)Corpus: God in the spotlight with tipping the 22+28 december concerts in the NRC weekend agenda and with an interview with Thomas Johannsen last Thursday in Podium on NPO Radio 4
Click here to listen to the interview (in Dutch language), with examples of the concert’s source material.
There are still tickets for the premiere tomorrow, 22-12: click here
IMPROFIL, leading German magazine for improvising musicians, has published an article about (Non)Corpus: God, written by artistic director Thomas Johannsen in its annual edition. The article gives the reader a deeper insight into the thoughts/intentions and (work) process of this project. The article is in English. >> Read article
You can also listen to the recent (Dutch) interview about the project that was broadcast by NPS Radio 4here.
This Sunday, we will fill the big and beautiful Dominicuskerk in Amsterdam with 100 moving lights, sounds from east to west, and music from deep inside and from intangibly far away.
Premiere Identities Amsterdam, In the context of the programVan heinde en ver, artist duo Take Twee has realized five film portraits of Amsterdammers with a migration background for Museum Perron Oost. On the occasion of the premiere, the Genetic Choir provides a musical portrait of the people portrayed. There will also be talks with the film makers and the people in the film.
Première Identities Amsterdam, Kunstenaarsduo Take Twee heeft voor Museum Perron Oost – in het kader van het Programma Van heinde en ver – vijf filmportretten gerealiseerd van Amsterdammers met een migratieachtergrond. Ter gelegenheid van de première verzorgt verzorgt het Genetic Choir een muzikaal portret van de geportreteerden. Er zullen tevens gesprekken zijn met de filmmakers en met de mensen die in de film te zien zijn.
