Description
Figures like Yoko Ono, the Dutch singer/poet Jaap Blonk, Jeanne Lee, and Phil Minton are just a few names in the broader history of free jazz voice or vocal free improvisation. In this lecture/workshop Dr. Chris Tonelli will explore this musical history, explain his theory of the social effects of unconventional vocality, and recount the path and philosophy that brought him to his work in the area of community improvisational choral practices.In his book Voices Found: Free Jazz and Singing and in articles like his “Ableism and the Reception of Improvised Soundsinging,” Dr. Tonelli has developed a theory of when and why audiences refuse to hear certain human vocal sounds as human. This refusal emerges, he argues, in defense of a broader symbolic order, discussed in race theory literature like Alexander Weheliye’s Habeas Viscus and in disability studies literature, invested in marking certain human bodies and sounds as less-than-human as a means of marking others as fully-human. Illuminating these processes, as they emerge in both musical spaces and more everyday vocal practices, he will argue, allows us to gain a deeper understanding of the symbolic work we might be engaged in whenever we speak, sing, or sound with our voices.
With so much at stake in the act of vocalization, it is important to rethink how we use (and refuse to use) our voices. The second part of this session will be conducted as a participatory vocal and choral improvisation workshop where Dr Tonelli will demonstrate the conduction techniques and vocal methods he uses in the “Vocal Exploration” Gatherings and Choirs he has been organizing since 2014. He will also explain his approach to organizing and sustaining inclusive community vocal improvisation ensembles and his views about the social good such ensembles can do.
| Period | 17-Mar-2022 |
|---|---|
| Held at | Utrecht University, Netherlands |
| Degree of Recognition | National |