This March five very exotic birds will alight in Tivoli Vredenburg (Utrecht) for the Birds of Paradise Festival. On 10th March, it’ll be the Dutch artist Thomas Azier, together with the Finnish guitarist/producer Obi Blanche, who’ll be showing off their plumage in Tivoli. Their project, Glossolalia, is a take on the use of mysterious, impenetrable language; a performance inspired by movement, space, voices in chorus, and the sounds of suspended loudspeakers swinging through the air. The piece is a metaphor for the chaos and confusion of contemporary life.
Thomas Azier, together with Obi Blanche, Maarten Hogenhuis (sax, BRUUT!), drummer Simon Segers (De Beren Gieren) and an 8-voice women’s choir will create a unique experience full of surprises for Glossolalia audiences.
Thomas: “For me, Glossolalia is a kind of modular project which changes and grows as time goes by. For each show we’ll be working with the filmmaker Matthijs Vuijk who’ll record pretty much everything we do in the show. Because audience and musicians share the same space in this project this gives us the chance to adapt and improve the material with each successive performance. We already have a short sequence recorded in 2021 during our O. Festival residence at WORM in Rotterdam.”
Also look at the amazing Birds of Paradise website hier.
Thomas is working with Unusual Suspects on a research project involving choral singers in unusual or found space. The project explores the way in which performance, composition and the use of space enriches the public’s experience in performance. “Glossolalia”, title of the show emerging from these experiments, is being developed together with Unusual Suspects, Rotterdam’s O. Festival, and the Choral Biennale in Haarlem. Unusual Suspects coached Thomas on the choral and production side and put together an international tour for the project.
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