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Aankondigingen en terugblikken op Genetic Choir projecten, concerten en workshops verschijnen regelmatig op ons blog. Hieronder vind je de meest recente berichten.
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the Genetic Choir blog

regular news about vocal instant composition ensemble Genetic Choir

Scientific paper published: “Making Dementia Matter Through Sound”

Anthropologist Marjolein Gysels has been shadowing the Stem&Luister project of the Genetic Choir since many years now, and a paper she wrote about it, co-authored by Chris Tonelli and Thomas Johannsen, has last week reached the status of a peer-reviewed and published scientific article!

In the current issue of the journal ‘Voices’ (www.voices.no), published on 1st of March, 2024, the paper is featured up front. Look here for the journal’s website or download the article directly via this link if you want to read it, or share it.

The paper describes many hands-on situations that Genetic Choir singers encounter in the work with people suffering from late-phase dementia, and places the methods of the Stem&Luister project in the context of scientific discussion about improvisation, music therapy and healthcare.

“Improvisers Without Borders” – a project that should be kept in the air

Today a call on behalf of someone else: The French improvisers collective ‘Fondeur du Son’ is supporting the website ‘Improvisers Without Borders’ since its creation a number of years ago. The website, where improvisers from any country can make an account and get connected with others, was developed with EU funding, but now has to be maintained from other sources, just to keep it technically running.

It is a great networking resource for European Improvisers and should be kept in the air!

Fondeur du Son is now asking help for just the basic yearly IT maintencance of the website, and Genetic Choir just donated towards it, as we think it is an important thing for the European community of improvisers. Please consider supporting it too, even just a few euros are already helping to reach the crowdfunding goal (now at 69%)!

Here’s the place to be and contribute: https://www.kisskissbankbank.com/en/projects/improvisors-without-borders-we-need-you-eb92c7db-4732-45c3-89b3-fc69a8275d79

Thanks already on behalf of all improvisers out there!

What’s in a song?

A song – there is so much inside! And it is not just the story, music and feeling that it expresses in its original form – each song can be seen as an Easter Egg of possibilities. Especially if you look it at from a Genetic Choir point of view.

Working with well-known-songs to improvise and create new music is a long term obsession of Genetic Choir work, and with the upcoming Old Songs, New Songs workshop on 9+10 March, we will have another weekend of improvisation research where everyone brings a song, and we see what we can do with it, musically, while instant composing together.

There are two places left in the group, so if you are interested, click here for the info and/or to subscribe.

Connecting Toronto with Amsterdam

Christine Duncan (from Toronto, Canada) was in Amsterdam and we shared a wonderful morning with a few Genetic Choir singers and improviser/musicologist Chris Tonelli singing, eating and talking.

Christine is the founder and leader of the Element Choir, which you could call family of Genetic Choir in the sense that they also love all sorts of human sounds, becoming music. 😃 The main difference is that the Element Choir is conducted while Genetic Choir is about the organism of singers swarm-composing themselves. The great thing about Christine’s way of working (a system of hand-signs that she researched and developed) is that she can easily work with big groups of 50 or 80 singers and very quickly instant compose with them, like she did in the Soundmakers project of Ineke Vandoorn and Mark van Vugt, that she came to the Netherlands for.

We had a lovely conversation, good food on the table and improvised for/with each other freely (Genetic Choir style) as a dessert. What a delightful encounter! Next time in Toronto?

Happy New Music

Which music will the new year bring? Let’s go for songs that nurture and confront, that bring new perspectives in hearts that have gone cold and stiff, music of hope and truth and humour, in any degrees that a moment asks for.

Wishing the world a year with wars ending and everyone in it a year with as much peace or movement/challenges as you wish for! 💫💫💫

For Genetic Choir, of course all music is New music. But in March we will look especially at Old Songs versus New Songs, in a weekend for experienced singers. For those who love short and sweet, there is a Genetic Choir intro workshop coming up, and also the intensive group training on Friday Mornings (eight times this Spring) is going into a new round with some exciting new perspectives on Genetic Choir training!

INTRO WORKSHOP GENETIC CHOIR
27 January – 10:00-13:00 – click here

FRIDAY MORNING SESSIONS
eight times on a Friday morning between 2 February – 19 April – click here

OLD SONGS, NEW SONGS
weekend workshop 9 & 10 March – click here

See you there!

the Genetic Choir

One spot left in masterclass weekend!

Next weekend (16/17 december) is a special occasion of Genetic Choir training: The possibility for you to get full individual attention as vocalist/improviser in a two-day masterclass by Thomas Johannsen (max. 6 participants).

Yinske Silva, initiator of the House of Voice and long-year Genetic Choir veteran, is hosting this weekend in her studio in Amsterdam-West.

There is one spot left, and no specific background is needed to join. Lunch and snacks/drinks provided 😄.

All info and registration via The House of Voice: Singing as a Swarm, here.

WhatIIIF? opens their door Wednesday at 20:30

Right at this moment, 30+ artists from all over Europe are improvising at Worm in Rotterdam. Researching the use of SPACE, performing and reflecting and performing. Five days and two nights, 2-6 October 2023.

There are two Genetic Choir singers/makers in this current gathering in Rotterdam and Genetic Choir stood at the cradle of this nomadic, peer-to-peer festival of interdisciplinary improvisers.

WhatIIIF? at Worm is opening its doors tomorrow evening:

Wednesday, 4 October, 20:30-22:30
@Worm, Boomgaardsstraat 71, Rotterdam

And you can follow all outcomes of this week’s research via the Open Improvisation Knowledge Base on instantcomposition.com

drawings: live on Monday @WhatIIIF? 2023 by Danielle Davidson

Sweet AnaRchy + Genetic Choir

For the spontaneous souls, living in the Netherlands:

Tonight, a Genetic Choir workshop for a mix of singers and instrumentalists as part of the SWEET ANARCHY sessions in Brebl, Nijmegen!

19:00 doors open
19:30 Genetic Orchestra/Choir workshop starts (costs: 10 euro p.p.)
21:00 free impro session starts

Address: Waalbandijk 14d in Nijmegen

See you there or be square! 😄

Singing as a Swarm – the lecture

Completely unrelated to the previous post, but under the same title 😄 , Thomas is giving an online lecture on Genetic Choir practice next week Friday, 29 September, 15:00-17:00.

Invited by CLEA, the Center Leo Apostol for Interdisciplinary Research at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Thomas will attempt to describe the ideas and insights gathered in a decennium of researching ‘swarm composing’ with the Genetic Choir Ensemble.

It is also transmitted live in Brussels so if you live there, you can also join an audience on the campus). See all info here.

Zoomlink: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82757798426?pwd=em9sQlJDVjJYTEFRNk01dEJLWGxGUT09

Meeting ID: 827 5779 8426
Passcode: 122127

“Genetic Choir is a practice of music creation from self-organising principles. It employs human beings (singers) as the agents of instant composition, drawing on principles such as swarm intelligence and emergent behaviour. For the singers, it is an improvisation practice that explores a basic human dilemma: how to be autonomous as well as connected, how to follow your individual, creative intuition but also build meaningful working relationships in the moment, with others? Thirdly, it is a music making method that provides tools for any group of people without a shared musical background to find position and clarity of relationship in a musical space together, without the necessity of agreeing beforehand what ‘music’ exactly is. In over 12 years of exploring this, the Genetic Choir has developed ways of working that attempt to keep human intuition and our fast choice-making abilities active when composing together, while shedding slow choice-making processes related to taste and assumed social rules. Thomas Johannsen, founder and artistic leader of the Genetic Choir, will give an inside look into their practices and share insights related to self-organisation and emergence when applied to music making without a script, score or conductor.”

Singing as a Swarm – the masterclass

There is a special workshop coming up, organised by The House of Voice in december:

Thomas will give a masterclass, working one whole weekend with only 6 singers in a concentrated setting on Genetic Choir technique. If you are interested in this, reserve your place quickly…

“Singing as a Swarm”

16+17 december 2023, 10:00 – 17:00 in Amsterdam

More info and registration on thehouseofvoice.nl