AN AMATEUR CHOIR 2023

There are sounds that stick in your head, like a sewing machine, or when my mother used to wash clothes outside in our backyard, I remember sitting there listening to the rhythm with which she rubbed the clothes against the washboard, and for me, the sound of a washing machine is hypnotic, the purring motor of a fridge is like a whisper and when it rattles out a whistle I would have the iiiiiiiiiii in my brain all day, and I was never sure whether it was me or the machine, tinnitus, tinkling like flowing water inside your head, and then the silence was terrifying, and depending on your position you could hear your vertebrae because we all have internal, interior sounds and you sometimes hear a beat in your ears like when you come out of a club and keep getting that buzzing, ringing pum-pum-pum, and seeing as I live on the seventh floor all the clock bells sound differently and drive me up the wall. Have you never thought that a repetitive sound is like someone talking? Or maybe a ghost. You have to be very careful with all this, look for places that have voices and for voices that seem like they are not there because they are inside your head, in another world, in abandoned villages in Madrid, in the materials of things. We want to learn a song together, to rustle up a storm, to sing to the stars in Valencia and so on until we embrace all the sounds that exist in the universe.

An Amateur Choir is a creative project that welcomes any kind of voice which wishes to participate. Besides our own experimental sessions every second Thursday, we also have sessions with artists who work with the voice and listening. Some of the people who have passed through our choir are: Sonia Megías, Itziar Okáriz, Jaume Ferrete, María Salgado and Fran MM Cabeza de Vaca, Rocío Márquez, Alma Söderberg, Ainara Lagardon, Jhana Beat, Lolita Versache, Bea Narcoléptica, Luz Prado, Los Torreznos, Makiko Kitago, Julián Mayorga, Agnès Pe, Paloma Carrasco, Anto Rodríguez, Elisa C. Martín, Elena Murcia Pinto with Marina Peralta Murcia, Inma Marín with Jon Cañal and Tania Arias Winogradow with Milo-Andrey Ulises, Rolando San Martín, Amalia Fernández, Elena Córdoba, Raquel G. Ibáñez, Alex Reynolds, Black Tulip, tacoderaya, Mónica Valenciano, Ruth Abellán and Arturo Moya, Ojo Último, Monserrat Palacios and Fátima Miranda.