First Dutch review of our new CD

More reviews are coming in! This one is for our Dutch followers, from conductor/singer/orchestrator Ruben Smits. (Want to come to our cd release concert on 4 december? Click here.)

Nog voor de officiele release datum van onze nieuwe cd (zie ook het 4 december concert) vroegen we mensen binnen en buiten de muziekwereld naar de cd te luisteren en hun indrukken voor ons op te schrijven.

Nu dus de recensie van dirigent, arrangeur en zanger Ruben Smits. Beneden een uittreksel, de hele review lees je hier.

Verrassingsmenu van een utopisch ensemble

“Church Songs for the 21st Century toont de stem in al zijn facetten en al zijn dynamiek. Voor een klein uur bevind je je in een andere wereld, vol risico, fantasie en verwondering.”

“(…) Dat vind ik bovenal het beste aan Genetic Choir en deze cd. Je kunt als luisteraar ‘gewoon eens’ onbestemd, zonder te weten wat gaat komen, luisteren zonder te anticiperen. Zoals het verrassingsmenu op de restaurantkaart, dient Church Songs for the 21st Century hapjes in andere en soms zeer onverwachte smaken. ‘Promised Land’ ontaardt geleidelijk in zielensnijdende lamentaties, evenals ‘Sing, Fallen Angels, Sing’, waar de hoge dosis ruis een gevoel van zwaarte en pijn in de luisteraar losmaakt en in ‘Those Who Dug Down Deep’ worden juist de slaande kerkbellen onderdeel van het soundscape. Maar de grootste verrassing zit aan het eind van (het overigens relatief zeer idiomatisch beginnende) ‘Congregation / Entrance of the King’.”

Read the whole review here.

 

Christmas Song

If we would have called this composition “Holy Night in Bethlehem” and presented it as a Christmas single, it might have made the charts.  🙂  But we didn’t!

Listen here to the closing piece of our new album CHURCH SONGS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY – cd launch concert is on 4 december!

Easily the most harmonic and “straight” piece of music the Genetic Choir has composed to date. (but don’t worry we will keep doing the crazy stuff as well 😉  ) Enjoy!

 

The CD will be presented next Friday, December 4th, on our marvellous concert night in the Obrechtkerk Amsterdam. Be there or miss out on a one-time musical experience!

More info, CD and ticket reservations: click here.

First CD review on new ‘Church Songs’ album

We sent our new CD out prior to its upcoming release (see the 4 december concert), and the first reviews are coming in from colleagues around the globe. This one is from New Zealand born composer Alison Isadora who listened and wrote the following – below some excerpts, the full review can be found here.

“The CD starts with whispering before settling into more melodic phrases with a rhythmic accompaniment. Although we can hear that the choir is singing in a church, the voices are always close to us. There is an immediacy to the voices. As with many of the pieces on this CD, the use of a sense of a constant tonality and the presence of ostinato figures offers support for those listeners who may find the vocal adventures challenging.

In other tracks dense textures break open into jungle-like screams, croaks and gasps. A drone may give continuity within these rich and varied sonic landscapes. Silence may also act as a musical parameter.

In Track 3 I asked myself whether I was listening to an African language or an imagined one. The Genetic choir have developed their own vocabulary – a combination of vowels and consonants which is at once totally believable and yet seductively mysterious. (…)

In other pieces long slow contrapuntal lines coexist with fast ostinato figures. It is fascinating to hear how ideas develop, how melodic lines are shared, inverted and expanded. A melody that starts life as diatonic may move to a microtonal version and back again within the length of a breath.

Throughout the album there is a consistency in melodic material, a predeliction for drones and ostinato figures and a great willingness to explore and accept the richness of sounds a voice can make. We hear how musical ideas are embraced, expanded, developed and varied. This is group improvisation at its best. (…)”

     

Curious? Come to our magnificent CD release concert in the Obrechtkerk Amsterdam on 4 december –

more info, reserve tickets (and the CD) on this page.

It’s Genetic Choir CONCERT Month

We are starting on a month full of Genetic Choir concerts!

And actually, we are looking at a row of concerts that couldn’t be more diverse. You would think we planned this to showcase the various areas of the performing arts where the Genetic Choir is active (but we didn’t, honestly)  🙂

From the cutting-edge of music programming research to a soundtrack made for a theatre piece , from blending with fine art at a gallery to giving a big Church Concert with Bulgarian singers and organ to celebrate the release of our new CD: Church Songs for the 21st Century.

Take your pick!

 

Friday 6 November 2015, 20:00

presenting the Loop-Copy-Mutate project at STEIM’s Session View X

in collaboration with Robert van Heumen

Doors open: 19:30  Concert starts: 20:00

STEIM, Achtergracht 19, Amsterdam

 

Sunday, 15 November 2015, 14:30

Premiere: Ijsbeer in de Tropen (Ice bear in the jungle)

A puppet/object piece about an ice bear who gets lost on the ocean and ends up in the jungle. The piece is both about the feeling of going on adventure and the longing for home.

With a soundtrack created+sung by the Genetic Choir: all natural noises (pole winds, storms, waves/beach, jungle+apes) are done by human voices, to astonishing results.

More info about the performance is here.

For children from 3 years upward.  Dutch language skills not required. Reserve tickets here.

Amstelveens Poppentheater, Wolfert van Borsselenweg 85a, Amstelveen

 

 

Sunday, 29 November 2015, 16:00

Finissage of the Young Blood Initiatives’ month at Galerie Bart’s former venue: Bart Invites

The Genetic Choir will be reflecting on the exhibition with a special concert. (more info soon on this blog!)

November 29th, 4pm at Bart Invites, Bloemgracht 2, Amsterdam

 

Friday 4 December 2015, 20:00

Church Songs for the 21st Century

We celebrate the release of Genetic Choir’s second album “Church Songs for the 21st Century” with an amazing concert in the Obrechtkerk.

Jacob Obrechtstraat 30, Amsterdam

Very special guests confirmed until now include Jacob Lekkerkerker on organ and the amazing Bulgarian Voices of the Pauni Trio.

All our guests will engage with the Genetic Choir in Instant Composition and we will of course work with the special acoustics given by the church.

Tickets for this concert are only €5 and you can reserve here.

You can even get a discount if you reserve your ticket together with a CD. Be one of the first to get the new CD on release day!  Check out the options to support us for this very special concert: here.

 

Music review writing in exchange for CD !

While the CD launch date – 4 December – is approaching slowly, the new CD’s are already waiting, ready and eager to be listened to and scrutinized!  We therefore would like to propose the following:

Receive the brand new “Church Songs for the 21st Century” album before anyone else – and for free – in exchange for writing a preview/review for us about the CD.

Let us know if you are interested in this little swop of goods against activity.  If you promise to work your writing skills for us, we will send the CD to you at our own costs, or bring it personally to your door if you live anywhere near another Genetic Choir singer. 🙂

Write an e-mail to getCD@genetic-choir.org if you are interested in this, or get in touch via the Contact Page.

CD launch concert is on the 4th of December 2015 in the Obrechtkerk, Amsterdam!

update:  …the first reviews are coming in. Here one of Alison Isadora.

CD launch concert on 4 December with special guest Jacob Lekkerkerker

Finally, on 4 December 2015, the second Genetic Choir CD will be released! We are going to celebrate this with a big concert in the Obrechtkerk in Amsterdam:

Church Songs for the 21st Century

– the concert –

Friday 4 December 2015  –  20:00

Obrechtkerk, Jacob Obrechtstraat 30
1071 KM Amsterdam

Save that date, as we will have organist-improviser Jacob Lekkerkerker as very special guest and we are planning on having dancers and world music singers as well, to expand on our recent succesful collaboration in the Muziekgebouw concert.

Please support us to make this concert unforgettable by already buying your tickets (5,- Euro p.p.) here. You can also pre-order the CD to be the first to get it on concert day! Check out all the options here.

‘From writings of the Church fathers and other reports, it is unequivocally clear that the rites of worship of the early Christians were marked by a religious ecstasy that manifested itself in unhampered, purely emotional, spontaneous expression. From the earliest time onward there is copious documentary evidence of the extensive part played by improvisation throughout the development of all church music. In vocal music, improvising on all the intervals and internal combinations appearing in Gregorian chant was systematically practised by singers and choirboys. Later, instrumentally, there is evidence that musicians such as the 14th century blind organist Francesco Landini became well-known for their improvising abilities.’

(taken from Derek Bailey: Improvisation, its nature and practice in music (1992, p29)

Genesis

Here a freshly mastered track from our upcoming CD “Church Songs for the 21st Century”.

Enjoy!                                                                       …or click here for more Genetic Choir music