The BIM (= Beroepsvereniging van Improviserende Musici), union of professional improvisers and jazz musicians in the Netherlands, turned 50, and that was reason for a year-long celebration!

Under the flag of "50 years of Improvisation in the Netherlands", Genetic Choir's artistic leader Thomas Johannsen was one of five band leaders who were forming an intergenerational band from all five centuries of the BIM, out of musicians who had never been in the same band together before.

The project got the name Hidden Songs and toured the Netherlands in 2022.

Next to Thomas' Hidden Songs project, there were bands lead by Joris Teepe, Ian Cleaver, Miguel Ángel Santaella and Iman Spaargaren, featuring musicians like Han Bennink, Jesse van Ruller, Michael Moore, Ben van Gelder, and many more.

With proven Genetic Choir concepts as a basis, Thomas brought together for his band musicians from the rather opposing worlds of free impro and world music, resulting in an adventurous mix of three very different vocalists, piano, contrabas and ud.

Raoul van der Weide (1949), double bass / Estrella Acosta (1952), vocals / Nora Mulder (1965), piano / Thomas Johannsen (1974), vocals / Çiğdem Okuyucu (1986), vocals and ud

The anniversary created opportunity for two concerts in the Bimhuis (25 May and 1 October), one at the Pletterij, Haarlem (7 October) and one at Tivoli Vredenburg in Utrecht (14 October) 

For the big premiere of all 5 bands on 1 October, we got a nice review in national newspaper NRC, as you can read below.