Joan La Barbara’s virtuosic singing style – honed over decades of dedication to and research into different ways of using the voice – has been featured in works by composers including Philip Glass, John Cage, Robert Ashley, and Steve Reich. Her compositions focus around extended vocal techniques which take circularity and cycles as their driving force. To begin to understand La Barbara’s work, one may simply look to her first album’s title: Voice Is The Original Instrument (1976) – this is a creed she has held throughout her career, that, although roaming into electronic and contemporary classical realms, has always been rooted in the voice as a beacon of meaning and (dis)harmony. From the ritualistic, foreboding tones of Twelvesong (1983), to the visuality of the playful Sound Paintings (1991), to the animistic bellows of Shamansong (1998), La Barbara’s shape-shifting work foregrounds experimentation and disruption, forever finding new ways of playing the voice-as-instrument in unimaginable ways. – rewire.

European Touring Dates:

Thursday 27 March: Joan La Barbara “Voice Is the Original Instrument” music by Joan La Barbara. MaerzMusik festival – Haus der Berliner Festspiele – Side Stage, Schaperstraße 24, Berlin 10719, Germany

Saturday 29 March: Joan La Barbara “Sound Paintings” music by Joan La Barbara. ARCOOP Building, 32 rue des Noirettes, CH 1227 Carouge-Geneva, Switzerland

Saturday, 5 April: “Voice Is the Original Instrument” and “Sound Paintings” music by Joan La Barbara. Royal Music Academy of the Hague, Amare, Spuiplein150, 2511 EN Den Hag, Netherlands