For workshop and concert book here:
12.30 – 1.30 Open Workshop
3 – 4.30pm Performance (including Q&A with Jenni and choir members)
Performance only: £10
Workshop + performance: £15
Bringing together voices from across the spectrum of musical genres, this debut performance was created over a series of 6 rehearsals culminating into today’s showcase.
Composer, improviser, vocalist and Artistic Director Jenni Roditi was motivated to form this choir after attending the Freedom Sessions run by Cleveland Watkiss, Orphy Robinson and Tori Handsley and then participating in the weekend Festival of Improvisation, both at the Vortex earlier this year. Surrounded mainly by instrumentalists, she started dreaming of an ensemble of voices drawing from all traditions, techniques and tribes, improvising collectively within the structure of a new compositional approach inspired by the improvisation instrumental band Notes Inégales, director Peter Wiegold. This summer she attended a Circle Songs workshop with Bobby McFerrin in the USA where she experienced collective vocal improvisation lead by the world’s top circle song teachers.
Jenni founded a new vocal practice called Vocal Tai Chi in 2012, her own unique approach to improvisation, drawing on the vocal techniques of Alfred Wolfsohn and her interest in Indian classical music and contemporary experimental voice. She performs Vocal Tai Chi concerts and runs regular workshops and one-to-one sessions.
With all these great inspirations behind her she hopes to take her work to the next level with The Improvisers Choir.
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The performance will be preceded by an introductory one-hour workshop to enable vocalists of all levels to discover some of the techniques used by The Improvisers Choir – a fun and engaging insight into the afternoon concert and a practical introduction to collective vocal improvisation, after which participants will be invited to either audition for The Improvisers Choir or join The Open Choir (a new choir launching in Spring 2016 for vocalists of all levels who want to develop their improvisation skills).
