Genetic Choir

The Genetic Choir is a hybrid swarm of improvisation singers.

We are both a professional arts ensemble and a community for vocal improvisation training and development, based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

We are obsessively interested in how any conceivable sounds can be(come) music.

Get in touch if you have similar interests!

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Genetic Choirimprovisation
2025-07-12

Voice workshopping after the summer

With our best wishes for the upcoming summer months, we wanted to give you an overview of the Genetic Choir workshops on offer after the holidays. Most of them in Amsterdam, but now also in Den Bosch! There are our Intro Workshops, half-day workshops for getting to know or getting back into Genetic Choir improvising: 30 august, 11 october and 20 december…

geneticchoir.wordpress.com/202

Genetic Choirimprovisation
2025-07-01

Beyond Words op Hongerige Wolf festival

The microscopic village of Hongerige Wolf, which lies on the last road in the Netherlands – if you continue any further, you will fall into the Wadden Sea – will be transformed into fertile festival grounds on 11, 12 and 13 July. The residents are down-to-earth and hospitable, the surroundings stretch out as far as the eye can see. A good place to be for a summer weekend, especially because the Genetic Choir will be present there…

geneticchoir.wordpress.com/202

Genetic Choirimprovisation
2025-07-01

Giving voice to the material’s story

For the yearly exhibition of Rietveld Academy graduates, Genetic Choir got invited to collaborate and record instantly composed music together with artist Sara Darle Olsson. The singers will be seen and heard singing as a full-size projection in her exhibition work The Sincerest Form. In her graduation work, Sara Darle Olsson invites us for a walk through an experiential landscape of mimicry, storytelling and choreography.

geneticchoir.wordpress.com/202

Genetic Choirimprovisation
2025-06-27

Singing on the green motorway

It was fun, performing as part of the 750 year anniversary celebrations of Amsterdam! We created probably the most intimate space of all on this mega event with 20.000 visitors, that was happening on the ring-motorway around the city (A10). In the 'anniversary forest' of 750 trees (which turned out to be more like a lane with trees on the side, in fact) we were merging as singers with the greenery and creating a musical universe of our own…

geneticchoir.wordpress.com/202

Genetic Choirimprovisation
2025-06-18

@anantagd
That is indeed in stark contrast with each other, especially at this point of the ringroad 😬 . Thanks for pointing it out!

Genetic Choirimprovisation
2025-06-18

Forest on the Motorway – Genetic Choir performing as part of 750 year celebration Amsterdam

In the night from Friday to Saturday this week, 750 big trees and 7500 small trees will be placed on the ring motorway (A10) around Amsterdam. On Saturday morning 21st of June at 10:15, this forest (in Zone South) will open to the public, as part of the 750 years anniversary celebration of the city of Amsterdam. There are no tickets anymore, but for those who have them and are…

geneticchoir.wordpress.com/202

Genetic Choirimprovisation
2025-06-02

Mapping Moments in Improvisation: a 3.5 year full-time PhD opportunity

As fully funded PhD positions that concentrate on the art of Improvisation are so rare, we are sharing this opportunity that popped up in Manchester: Mapping Moments in Improvisation: A Participatory Action Research Study Moreover, this particular PhD focuses on mapping the work and effects of using improvisation in healthcare with people with dementia. In Manchester, they are doing it with the…

geneticchoir.wordpress.com/202

Genetic Choirimprovisation
2025-05-21

Genetic Choir in Museum van de Geest

On this year's Arts&Health festival in Museum van de Geest in Haarlem, the Genetic Choir will be prominently present with the Stem&Luister project on both days: Thursday, 22 May (tomorrow): As part of the afternoon in Museum van de Geest, we will performatively present our dementia project and show the film Beyond Words. Friday, 23 May: In the morning, there will be the possibility to follow a Genetic Choir workshop to get your…

geneticchoir.wordpress.com/202

Genetic Choirimprovisation
2025-05-07

For those with still have a Facebook account running:

Meta is going to train AI with your data: take action now!
@bitsoffreedom bitsoffreedom.nl/2025/05/07/me

Genetic Choirimprovisation
2025-05-07

Hello everyone!

As mailchimp doesn't yet automatically post to mastodon (such a shame), find via the link below our most recent newsletter, with past and upcoming projects and workshops:

us14.campaign-archive.com/?u=6

petrified forest in Australia
Genetic Choirimprovisation
2025-04-04

New: Genetic Choir Lab on Wednesdays

We will start a new regular training ground for Genetic Choir singing, with a focus on developing your vocal skills! The Genetic Choir Lab will be every other week on Wednesday evenings, starting after the summer vacation. Do you want to become more skilled at singing a variety of sounds and musical styles with your own voice? In the Genetic Choir Lab, you will research and train your voice and listening skills, then use it in group…

geneticchoir.wordpress.com/202

Genetic Choir boosted:
2025-03-21

What I like most about music is that it occupies, and fulfills, the mind. It only asks of us to feel - not to cogitate, ruminate, or strategize. Yet it has all the complexity and intellectual depth of the greatest human achievements.

It is, for me, the only way to truly live in the moment.

Genetic Choir boosted:
2025-03-21
When I'm composing, I find meaning in the act of challenging myself, and/or to make some kind of a puzzle for myself that I have to solve in the music. Oftentimes, I make up rules for myself that I have to follow, like for example when I'm using the knitting pattern for Thordis' fichu as a basis for my compositions (I'll post one of those compositions in the comments - the Finnish Sähkökitarakvartetti playing Hyrnan IV). As you could imagine, this does not make my work simple or easy, or maybe I'm just not clever enough to be able to do this easily in a way that I would be happy with, so - hard mode it is!

When I'm composing with the knitting pattern, I do a lot of experiments and sketches, and then I choose the bits and pieces I like most, and try to make something out of those. It can be really complicated to put the sketches together in a way that makes sense for me. Therefore, while I'm working on the composition, I have to get used to everything sounding terrible before it starts to sound better, and keep chiselling away at the heap of awfulness until something I'm happy with starts emerging.

#CreativePrompts #jazz #improvisation #improvisedmusic #contemporarymusic #composition #composing #icelandicmusic #icelandicjazz #guitar #bigband #compositionalstudies #jazzguitar #compositionstudies #creativity #art #sahkokitarakvartetti #electricguitar
Genetic Choirimprovisation
2025-03-13

We will be part of the Arts&Health festival this year in Museum van de Geest Haarlem. Presenting of course our dementia project - stem-en-luister.nl

Muziek en Dementie is het thema op 22+23 mei, met een erg mooie line-up van initiatieven en sprekers!

Volg deze link: leydenacademy.nl/events/event/

Genetic Choirimprovisation
2025-03-11

“Material” in free improvisation: Genetic Choir principles explained

There is a new four-page article published about the way 'swarm composition' is approached in the Genetic Choir! Read it here. The theme of the 2024 issue of IMPROFIL (a journal for the discipline of musical improvisation) was 'Material': How is musical material created, how is it edited and processed in the 'limitless' context of free improvisation? As an answer to this, Thomas Johannsen wrote an…

geneticchoir.wordpress.com/202

Genetic Choir boosted:
Waag Futurelabwaag@waag.social
2025-03-04

Afgelopen weekend ontving 'Flow' een Oscar voor beste animatiefilm. Deze film is gemaakt met de gratis open source software van @Blender, ontwikkeld in 1994 door Ton Roosendaal. Het programma kan gebruikt worden voor onder andere animatiefilms, games en VR.

Blender is gevestigd in Amsterdam en heeft in het verleden vaak samengewerkt met Waag Futurelab, onder andere aan het CineGrid project.

Goed om (weer) bevestigd te zien hoe FOSS bijdraagt aan onze creatieve industrie!

Still uit de animatiefilm Flow. Een zwarte kat met oranje-gele ogen heeft een vis in zijn bek en loopt over gras richting de camera
Genetic Choirimprovisation
2025-02-25

Finally back: Weekend workshop “Melody Makers” in May/June !

Sometimes people think Genetic Choir is just about making music from random crazy sounds, but no, we love melodies too! 😊🎶🎵 31 May + 1 June: Melody Makers workshop Time: Saturday and Sunday from 10:00-16:30Place: studio de Eester, C. van Eesterenlaan 302, AmsterdamPrice: 154,- euro p.p. Meer info en reserveren: click hier. Improvising with melodies is a beautiful skill to train, especially when it comes to…

geneticchoir.wordpress.com/202

Genetic Choirimprovisation
2025-02-07

We zijn er helemaal klaar voor!

Vanavond de premiere van de bizarre veronderstelling dat we fijnstof kunnen zingen 😆 (oftewel het maatschappelijke vraagstuk van grenswaarden voor luchtvervuiling in Amsterdam vertaald naar een artistieke avond).

Als je het nog spontaan wil meemaken, kom er gezellig bij: Begin om 20:00 uur in Pleintheater, Amsterdam.

plein-theater.nl/agenda/16397/

Genetic Choir boosted:
2025-01-29

Ken ik communicatie- / community-specialisten in regio Amsterdam die Nederlands en Engels spreken, kennis en netwerk heeft in verschillende culturele gemeenschappen, affiniteit heeft met muziek en geluid en een open hart heeft voor mensen met dementie?

@improvisation heeft een mooie vacature voor 4-6 uur per week:

geneticchoir.wordpress.com/202

#dementie #CultureleDiversiteit #amsterdam

Genetic Choir boosted:
Josephine BodeSuricat13
2025-01-27

„good busy“ as the Dutch say. Moving everything away from Google to Proton.

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