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about us
The Genetic Choir is a utopian idea and an ensemble of contemporary vocal improvisers that creates their own artistic projects and can be approached for collaborations and for giving concerts. We offer workshops that are open to everyone. We are also an ANBI stichting (official cultural charity organisation), and we like to create projects that initiate dialogue and reflection about societal issues and the role of improvisation and music therein. Find below more information about our mission and the ways to contact us.


 
General contact/questionsinfo@genetic-choir.org

Press contact for (Non)Corpus & Loop-Copy-Mutate:
Marjolein van Ruiten, +31 (0)6 200 62 844,pr@marjoleinvanruiten.com

Contact workshops:workshops@genetic-choir.org

ANBI information / donations stichting Here&Now: please scroll down to the bottom of this page or visit the stichting website.


TEAM:

Production Management
(Non)Corpus: God - Fenneke Maurice -fenneke@genetic-choir.org
Huis van Lied en Geluid - Geeske Coebergh -hvlg@genetic-choir.org

Publicity
Frank Verhagen -pr@genetic-choir.org
Marjolein van Ruiten -pr@marjoleinvanruiten.com

Graphic Design (house style & projects)
Yvo Zijlstra - Antenna Men -zijlstra@antenna-men.com

Bookkeeping & Financial Services
Lupacompany -paul.bader@lupacompany.com/marco.kooistra@lupacompany.com

Photos on this website:
René Castellijn (b/w photoshoot (Non)Corpus and publicity photos Loop-Copy-Mutate)
Nellie de Boer (Stem&Luister: all photos, Loop-Copy-Mutate: concert photos)


Ensemble Singers:

Singers of the Genetic Choir Ensemble share a continuous physical and musical training and engage with each other in laboratory voice research on a regular basis throughout the year. Around each project, a specific cast of singers gathers and it is possible for singers to be less active for a while and then return into the ensemble again. Ensemble singers during the last three years were/are:

Anita Kooij, Annabel Garringa, Anne Brattinga, Annelie Koning, Annemarie Steinvoort, Burkhard Körner, Chandana Sarma, Dido Mirck, Eduardo Suarez, Emiel Zonneveld, Geeske Coebergh, Hans Paape, Irene Rametta, Jeannette Huizinga, Kristien Sonnevijlle, Laura Stavinoha, Lies Beijerinck, Marjolijn Roeleveld, Martine van Ditzhuyzen, Meagan Hughes, Miyuki Inoue, Moira Mirck, Monica Coronado, Petra Pieck, Ralph de Rijke, Rutger de Groot, Tanaquil Schuttel, Thomas Johannsen, Yankı Bıçakçı, Yinske Silva, Zwaan de Vries

Artistic Leadership:
Projects, gigs and training sessions are lead by various people from the ensemble.

Overall Artistic Direction:
Thomas Johannsen - thomas@genetic-choir.org

 

What is the Genetic Choir?
The Genetic Choir is a utopian singing ensemble. Believing in the possibility that singers can be completely free in their improvisation and still coherently work together, the Genetic Choir sings instant composition concerts with all music created on the spot. Anything – from the characteristic silence of a building to a pattern on the floor or a conversation between audience members – can form the basic ingredient for our music.


 
In the Genetic Choir, professional musicians regularly mix with people from other strands of life. They train themselves as a musical organism, a small human society that interacts in spontaneous sound, becoming music. The mix of people ensures the right balance for both musically arresting and unexpected compositions.

Virtuosity is a skill that in the Genetic Choir is redefined in the context of this utopian collaboration: Are you able to find your place in the compositional whole? And are you able to move, within milliseconds, to the place that the music asks from you?

Our music is related to chaos theory, complexity principles and the self-organising patterns of interrelated nodes in a living network. Genetic Choir compositions create meaning and beauty from seeming randomness, not unlike genes that multiply and mutate or oscillators that sync with each other after a certain tipping point.

As we are singers of flesh and blood, the human component plays a role as well: Intention, timing, taste – ‘free will’ against group tendency and the imposing logic of the music itself. In this way, the Genetic Choir touches traditional themes of the human condition – being an active initiator as well as a small cog in the machinations of reality – and how this applies to living in the complex, networked society of today.

We create music that is heartfelt and unpredictable. We elevate an approach that operates through pattern-orientation and feedback cycles to a festival of sounds and musicality.


PHILOSOPHY AND BACKGROUND

The ambition of the Genetic Choir is to instantly compose, as a group, the music that any given moment asks for. Rather than being conducted, we want to be a choir that organises itself by the musical intelligence and intuition of all the members. Using principles of self-organisation and swarm intelligence, the Genetic Choir – as an organism – is the author and composer of all our music.

The Genetic Choir began in 2007 when Thomas Johannsen started gathering friends and colleagues to explore the possibilities of the human voice, composing as a self-organizing system and the joy of improvising and singing in general.

Although Thomas fulfills the role of artistic director for the organisation of the ensemble, he is just a singer and part of the swarm when the choir performs. No one has separate, structuring role in the moment of instant composition.
Sessions and workshops in which we train interdisciplinary swarm intelligence, vocal technique and improvisation are lead by different members of the ensemble.

We are looking at the whole range of the human voice, of which the more unusual sounds are often called ‘extended voice techniques’. But we also enjoy straight and harmonious singing. Whatever sounds we are making, we are always seeking to let the voice be ‘real’ (which actually is quite easy, but sometimes – when performing – feels like the hardest part).

Next to this, developing an understanding of how to work inside a big group of singers is an important part of the training: How to be one ‘agent’ of music amongst many, how to deal with your own desires/tastes/wishes and include them in the whole. We are also training musical principles like rhythm, sound textures and melody, but we always try to keep the system open for any type of music to appear (and not just the known genres or classifications of music).

The Genetic Choir is a professional & experimental singing ensemble that gives concerts and workshops in various countries around the globe and and in many types of collaborations and circumstances. Our home city is Amsterdam, the Netherlands.


DONATIONS & ANBI

Stichting Here & Now, interdisciplinary instant composition, is the foundation behind the Genetic Choir, registered as a cultural charity organisation in the Netherlands.

www.hereandnow.space

We are an ANBI foundation, which means for Dutch law that because of our charity status, donations to our organisation are tax-reductable.

ANBI Information

Stichting Here & Now is erkend as 'culturele ANBI' (Algemeen Nut Beogende Instelling).

Missie:
Het doel van stichting Here & Now is het steunen van projecten en/of personen die tot doel hebben het interdisciplinaire vak van de improvisatie als professionele discipline (verder) te ontwikkelen, zowel binnen als buiten de reguliere kunstwereld.

Volledige naam: Stichting Here & Now, interdisciplinary instant composition
RSIN nummer: 855220247
KvK nummer: 63402513
BTW nummer: 855220247B01
algemeen contactadres:us@hereandnow.space
postadres: Rangeerderstraat 16, 1019 TN Amsterdam
bankrekening (IBAN): NL07 TRIO 0390 9316 40

Voor eventuele vragen over financiele zaken is de stichting te bereiken via
fin@hereandnow.spaceof 06-14049252

Wilt u stichting Here & Now steunen, neem dan contact met ons op en/of doneer direct op onze bankrekening NL07 TRIO 0390 9316 40