regular news about vocal instant composition ensemble Genetic Choir
“Every knowledge that is not in your bones is just a rumour.”
Concerning Genetic Choir training, this proverb explains perfectly why Genetic Choir singers spend so much time in training together. There is no short-cut to becoming a swarm improviser other than doing it: Spending hours training and singing together, in order to not just have your mind, but also have your body and spirit understand what it is about. So that without thinking, you can sing and compose together – automagically.
Every half year, Genetic Choir invites to a series of Friday Morning workshops with a set group of participants, so that anyone who is interested can attempt to get the magic of Genetic Choir singing in their bones!
The next Friday Morning series will count 9 sessions divided in three small blocks. Here are the new dates:
31 jan, 7 feb, 14 feb
28 feb, 7 march, 14 march
28 march, 4 april, 11 april
We will either make two groups (9:00-11:00 and 11:30-13:30) or one bigger group with starting time 10:00-12:30. This will be decided in January when reservations have come in.
Find more information and the possibility to reserve a place by clicking here.
The Genetic Choir Ensemble is looking for a communication/community specialist concerning our dementia project Stem&Luister and our ambition to develop a diverse community of volunteers. Read the job description below!
As the job requires Dutch language and a network in Amsterdam, we kept the description in Dutch. Do forward it if you think you know someone who would be perfect for the job. 
Genetic Choir zoekt een Communicatiespecialist
met affiniteit voor verkennend onderzoek in cultureel diverse gemeenschappen in Amsterdam
Het Genetic Choir in Amsterdam is op zoek naar een researcher / communicatiespecialist voor het muzikale participatieproject Stem&Luister | 4 – 6 uur per week | Start januari/februari 2025 | Freelance
In het Stem&Luister project werkt Genetic Choir direct samen met bewoners in de laatste fase van dementie op de gesloten afdelingen van verpleeghuizen. Samen met getrainde vrijwilligers bezoeken de professionele zangers van het ensemble iedere week de gedeelde huiskamers tijdens de middag. Daarnaast organiseert het ensemble trainingen aan het personeel, verzorgers en familie rondom betekenisvol contact maken in het moment.
Het project draait momenteel goed en jaarlijks groeit de community van vrijwilligers. Vanwege de grote mix aan culturele achtergronden die we in de verpleeghuizen aantreffen, zowel wat betreft de bewoners als de zorgmedewerkers, familie en naasten, is een van onze ambities voor de komende jaren om ook de vrijwilligers community van Stem&Luister zangers cultureel diverser te maken om zo muzikaal nog beter aan te kunnen sluiten op de mensen in het verpleeghuis.
Daarom zoeken we een onderzoeker / communicatiespecialist die onderzoek kan doen en samen met ons strategieën kan ontwikkelen hoe deze ambitie te verwezenlijken, en deze plannen vervolgens ook uit te voeren. In deze rol zal je onderzoek doen naar de muzikale aanrakingspunten van mensen met niet-Nederlandse achtergrond met het project Stem&Luister. We willen onderzoeken hoe er in andere culturele gemeenschappen met (de zorg voor) mensen met vergevorderde dementie wordt omgegaan. Welke rol speelt in deze gemeenschappen muziek en zingen in het contact met ouderen die zich niet meer verbaal kunnen uiten? Hoe brengen we de speelse, maar ook vrij moderne aanpak van improviserend zingen binnen Stem&Luister naar deze gemeenschappen om ook daar vrijwilligers voor het project te werven?
Na het onderzoeken en ontwerpen van een strategie is ook de uitvoering van de werving specifiek in deze gemeenschappen (ondersteund door ons team) onderdeel van jouw rol.
Wat neem jij mee:
Wat houdt de functie verder in:
Bij interesse, neem contact op met artistiek leider van Genetic Choir Thomas Johannsen, via thomas@genetic-choir.org. Voor meer informatie over Stem&Luister kun je een kijkje nemen op de website van het gezelschap.
Genetic Choir singers were invited to give a concert and two workshops on a national Symposium on Music & Dementia in Hamburg, Germany. Here some photo impressions of the concert on 27 September 2024, in which we first let the audience make some ‘Ear Music’ themselves (with thanks to a piece of Daisuke Terauchi) and then sang two instant composition pieces, both amongst the audience and on stage.
It was a great experience and we were welcomed very warmly. Also the two Genetic Choir workshops the next day were both overbooked and greeted with great enthousiasm on behalf of the participants. Hamburg, we will return!
For those interested in the themes&guests of the “Tagung Musik und Demenz”, find the programme here and the symposium report here.
The photos are from Jann Wilken, with a big thanks to him for the permission to show them here!
This week on Friday at 17:00, you are invited to join an unofficial work-in-progress showing of the project “Luchtstilte” that we are developing together with NOW (Marion TrĂ€nkle and Ivo Bol)
“Luchtstilte” is a project in which NOW is measuring local air quality (around the traffic-rich Mauritskade, close to the Pleintheater and residential areas) and translating it into a performance of light, sound and voices inside the theater. What are the ‘critical values’ of air pollution that we set ourselves, as a city, as a community, and what are the consequences of defining critical values higher or lower?
The Genetic Choir is using its original definition of being “a small human society that interacts in sounds and silences” to make the approach of critical values in air pollution experiential in music.
Read here more about the project – the premiere is planned on 7 February 2025.
This week, we are working on the first concepts for the performance and would be happy to have a test-audience to give us feedback!
Where: Pleintheater, Sajetplein 39, 1091 DB Amsterdam
When: Friday, 22 November, 17:00
Entrance is free, we will pick you up at the entrance of the theater.
Genetic Choir will give this Saturday morning a concert in the Jungle in Amsterdam, as part of the Song of Yoga series: A yoga class combined with a concert. Illustrious improvisers like Ernst Reijseger and Erik Bosgraaf were in the monthly line-up this year, so we are in great company.
Bring your mat and experience the Genetic Choir who will accompany, deepen and trigger the yoga practice of the yogi/listeners! —>Â Reservations here.
Saturday 16 November 2024
11:00 until 12:30
Venue: Jungle Amsterdam, Tweede van Swindenstraat 26, Amsterdam
Our dementia project goes to Brabant!
We made plans, together with contemporary music festival November Music to bring the Stem&Luister project to Den Bosch in the coming year. In preparation of that, two Genetic Choir workshops by Kristien Sonnevijlle and the documentary film “Beyond Words” by Kim Brand will be part of the festival this year already!
You can join on either 8 or 15 November 2024 – 14:00-17:00 – Stem&Luister workshop in the Verkadefabriek
The workshops are free, but you need to reserve your spot here:
https://www.novembermusic.net/programma/stem-luister-genetic
From 8 till 12 November 2024, the documentary film about the Stem&Luister project – “Beyond Words” (20 min) – is shown in the hall of the Verkadefabriek – in a specially prepared glasshouse – in a continuous loop during festival times.
Nina Stefanovski, – a journalist from the Dutch nationwide newspaper NRC – followed us in our Stem&Luister project, where we make contact with people with last-phase dementia and wrote a beautiful article about it!
Here is the online article on the NRC website, but if you are not let in by the pay-wall, you can also read this pdf of the article as it appeared in the printed newspaper:
When there are sounds or silence, there is TIME. There is no escaping it, so as improvisers, we better explore the substance of time and get to know it intimately. Let’s get our hands dirty with all the different aspects of time – beginnings, endings, phrasing, suspense, and of course beats and pulse and rhythm, to just name a few. But also in a single long tone, and in the delivery of a song, there are layers and layers of time to explore.
This Autumn’s Friday Morning Sessions will look through the lense of TIME at Genetic Choir training and at improvising together!
Time is the friend of improvisers, although sometimes, it can feel like the opposite is true. 
The Friday Morning Sessions deliver Genetic Choir training in eight workshops on Friday mornings, to which you subscribe as a whole. Each Autmumn and Spring, there is a new take on the proven Genetic Choir principles of instant composing, facilitated by artistic director Thomas Johannsen. Vocal work and body work is intertwined to train you in all aspects of voice improvisation.
The commitment of the group strengthens the training and ensures that we can go deep into the matter quickly, on every consecutive session.
The set of dates this Autumn are:
4, 11 & 18 oktober
8 & 15 november
29 nov, 6 & 13 december
Eight workshops of 2,5 hours: 248 euro
Times: 10:00-12:30
More info here – direct link to reserve your place is here.
New to Genetic Choir? Note that you should do an Intro Workshop first. Look here for the dates.
The Amsterdam television channel AT5 has made an item about the Stem&Luister project, which also features – for the first time outside the cinema – sequences of the black-and-white documentary of Kim Brand!
Watch it here, and please share with people who might be interested to join the project as singers: https://www.at5.nl/artikelen/227342/zangkoor-helpt-dementerende-ouderen-om-uit-isolement-te-komen
The documentary film by Kim Brand about Genetic Choir’s Stem&Luister project is selected by the Sheffield DocFest, one of the biggest documentary festivals in the world! The world premiere is set to 15 June 2024 – next week Saturday – and will thus happen in Sheffield, England.
Follow this link: https://www.sheffdocfest.com/film/beyond-words
There is also a trailer in the making, but for now we can make you excited about it with a set of stills from the film:
It was a wonderful ride to make this film, together with Kim Brand and her filming team. Thanks again to everyone involved.
Stem&Luister is training anyone who would like to become a singer-volunteer!
(How? Click here.)
To make meaningful contact via musical listening and a playful voice with people in the last phase of dementia.
If you are curious and want to get involved, please get in touch with Lina (lina@genetic-choir.org) and/or have a look at the project webpage:
