Solids for Voices

In 2008, Danish singer and composer Anja Jacobsen began a series of vocal explorations with eight singers. The group developed a music centered on rhythms and voices. These explorations gave birth to the quartet Valby Vokalgruppe, which over the years has evolved and occasionally integrates instruments. The four singers collectively composed four large-scale pieces with a cross-disciplinary aesthetic, some of which include texts drawn from plays, projections of texts on the walls, and at times the participation of dancers and classical singers. With the album SOLIDS FOR VOICES, released in autumn 2025 and premiered in Switzerland on this occasion, Valby Vokalgruppe returns to its roots.

SOLIDS FOR VOICES are short but densely concentrated rhythmic explorations that, through repetition, transform into trance. The music combines extreme precision with gentleness and radicality. Intense concentration and a playful spirit coexist and transcend the instant of sound. Geometric figures such as Platonic solids are translated into vocal rhythms, while melodies emerge intuitively. The group fully disappears into voice, rhythm, and trance.

Considering Valby Vokalgruppe’s interest in geometric forms, Ensemble Vide and Arta Sperto / KorSonoR invited Francis Baudevin to conceive a visual contribution for this concert. Drawing on the repertoire of forms present in his works and references, he proposes a composition based on circles (notes) arranged in squares and circles, in both positive and negative. These motifs will be projected into the space using gobos.

Presentation of Valby Vokalgruppe’s album Solids for Voices (Hands in The Dark Records) and Francis Baudevin’s monograph Poptones (jrp/editions / KBCB).

See the event on Ensemble Vide’s website