Workshops Saturday Morning

Stage presence
Musicians’ presence and visual appearances during a concert play a crucial role in the audience’s responsiveness to the music and overall experience of the concert. Many musicians are unknowingly standing in the way of their own music, by visually sending confusing signals to the audience, and are unaware of all the potential that lies within framing the music right and creating an emotional journey within the concert. I will share concrete methods and tools to maintain the audience’s attention, responsiveness, and curiosity throughout the whole concert.

The Concert Design Concept – Creating magical vocal worlds by Astrid Vang Pedersen
How do you create a captivating staging of your choir performance? – This lecture helps you reflect on the question by introducing The Concert Design Concept. Concert Design is a conceptual and practical approach to designing embodied, aesthetic and communicative choral music performances developed by PhD Astrid Vang-Pedersen through her doctoral research and practice. The Concert Design Concept provides methods to reflect on the concert situation as an event and tools for singers to expand their skills as performers. In the lecture, The Concert Design Concept will be introduced and illustrated, providing insight into the craft of designing choral performances through thoughtful choices regarding visual, embodied and communicative elements. The presentation will end with a Q & A session.

You will choose one of 2 American Songbook Standards and walk through the steps to “owning the music”. We will explore the personal connection to the lyric, make the rhythm conversational, embellish the melody, add reharmonization, experiment with grooves, tempos and time signatures; and eventually implement arranging ideas. You will discover what is important to you in the song, embrace the essence of the piece, and lift it off of the page. We will emphasize the musical tools of phrasing, dynamics, and improvisation. After we’ve covered some of this new territory, we will break into teams and create a unique version of each of the songs. Together, we will make a new musical statement and reinvent these tunes to encompass your own musical vision. If you contribute a part of yourself to the song, it will resonate with everyone. It’s also important to develop good quality material; you may end up singing YOUR song for your entire career! More on Kim Nazarian

This workshop is mainly about the fun and the inspiration, the vibe emerging in the space between the participants.
From that energy, anything can happen.
We will create music together on the spot. Musical input on-the-fly from participants will be facilitated by Peder Karlsson.
The intended result of the workshop – the AAVF song – doesn’t have to be a very elaborated or long composition.
Please note that there may be opportunities to sing the workshop song(s) during various AAVF activities on the Saturday and Sunday.
Stay tuned with the process!

Please also note that copyrights of songs (melody + lyrics) that is written during this workshop and performed during AAVF 2022 belong to the AAVF. This workshop is presented in collaboration with RAMA Vocal Center. More on Peder Karlsson

Wait, what? Metal music performed with human voices only?
Welcome to a unique experience, where we will learn and practice an A Cappella arrangement for a Metal song, without compromising the style – it will be powerful, heavy, and energetic.
In this workshop we will touch some vocal techniques that are common in Rock and Metal singing, and will help us achieve a unique sound together. We will go through the score of the arrangement and learn the parts (sight reading will be helpful but is not a necessity), and by the end of the workshop, we will sing it together!
It doesn’t matter if you are a beginner or an experienced singer. All you need is an open mind and your voice, so get ready to step outside of your comfort zone and experience something new and awesome. More on Noa Gruman

Vocal music isn’t all about arrangements and vocal parts; Most world cultures have a tradition of a cappella singing that relies on nothing but one’s ear and voice. Learn the fundamentals of improvising pop songs, how to sing a “circle song,” and how to improvise music without any rules or boundaries.
Sometimes used as warmups, sometimes used to help build focus or musical precision, sometimes used to help build confidence in improvisation, this seminar teaches a number of different singing games that can be enjoyed by all ages. More on Deke Sharon