environmental dialogue - Experimentalchor Alte Stimmen

In the organizer's words:

The Experimental Choir Alte Stimmen in the footsteps of Pauline Oliveros.

Every place, every room has a distinctive sound, depending on sound reflections, noises inside or outside. Our brain immediately filters out most of these sounds if, for example, it interprets them as harmless, ugly or insignificant for us. The aim of this project, which is based on a concept by Pauline Oliveros from her "sonic meditations", is to bypass this filter and expand our perception.

The film environmental dialogue accompanies the experimental choir Alte Stimmen - a unique choir of people aged 60 and over that has been in existence for 15 years - on its expedition to different sounding places in order to listen intensively and communicate with them vocally. The singers engage in a dialog with space and place. The "interactions" merge into a sound whose source is often no longer identifiable.

In Cologne, the choir has performed in the empty building of the Melanchthon Academy shortly before its demolition, in Café Fleur, in Nordpark in Riehl, in the stairwell of the Cologne Oval Offices and in Kolumba, the art museum of the Archdiocese of Cologne. The singers experienced the special energy of these places and recorded, amplified and extended it vocally. The result is an experimental music film combined with personal statements. A mixture of spatial concert, meditation, auditory sensitization and class trip.

D 2024, choir direction: Alexandra Naumann, Ortrud Kegel, Simon Rummel; camera and editing: Uwe Schorn

An event by the Experimental Choir Alte Stimmen, supported by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia from the Förderfonds Kulturelle Bildung im Alter, the Victor Rolff Foundation and SK KölnBonn.