I arrived in Aarhus a couple days before the beginning of the festival just in time to
attend a record release party for the Danish group Vocal Line, coming directly from the airport
after a 17 hour trip! Songs from the album were mixed in the USA by Freddie Feldman, Dave Sperandio,
and myself, as well as Danish engineer Henrik Birk Aaboe.
Here, their leader Jens Johansen makes a speech. Jens is the Artistic director as well for the upcoming festival,
which was coordinated by Henrik, mentioned above.
Jens introduces a short performance by Vocal Line, and you can see a short video clip here.
I am staying in the home of my friend John Kjøller of the group baSix from right here in Aarhus.
This is his cat, Farlig.
A novel concept for concert engineering - here in baSix' studio, their live soundman, Ben, gets settings on a new
song to be performed in Friday's concert by using recorded practice tracks. baSix will of course sing all of the parts
live, but all of the effects and levels of the song will be already programmed into the mixing console!
Speaking of consoles, here's the board in the "small" performance space - can't wait to
see what they use in the "medium" and "large" rooms!
Jens Johansen opens the festival Thursday night for the early birds who are already here in town.
The full program starts tomorrow, but we had a more "intimate" party for around 500 people tonight!
By tomorrow there will be over 650 singers in attendance for workshops, and many more for the
concerts Friday and Saturday nights!
Two large Danish Mixed groups sang for us tonight - first up was Touché, from Copenhagen.
video clip
Next up was Vox North, who performed improvisational works with a lot of depth and power.
They were joined on stage for a time by Roger Treece of New York, from Bobby McFerrin's Voicestra.
video clip
Each group performed for over an hour!
Roger Treece improvises with Vox North. At 11PM, the opening concert ended,
and everyone is looking forward to tomorrow!