VALBY VOKALGRUPPE
Vokalgruppe.
The album is kindly supported by Koda Kultur and MPO.
INFO:
Valby Vokalgruppe revolve around the acoustic sound originating from the voices of its members: Lil
Lacy, Sonja LaBianca, Cæcilie Trier, Laura Marie Madsen and Anja Jacobsen. Laura Marie Madsen has
recently joined the group and Cæcilie Trier is taking a temporary break from live concerts.
SOLIDS FOR VOICES are shorter, but densely concentrated rhythmical explorations, that by repetition
turn into trance-like patterns. The music combines extreme precision alongside softness and radical
compositional structures. Intense focus and playfulness coexist - transcending into a deep concentration
and clear state of mind - geometrical figures like the platonic solids are “translated” into vocal rhythms
while intuitive melodies float above. Valby Vokalgruppe endeavors a total absorption into the voice, into
the rhythm, into the trance.
BACKGROUND:
Anja Jacobsen is the leader of Valby Vokalgruppe, sometimes the main composer, at other times the
initiator of collective compositional processes. In 2008 she took the initiative to begin a series of vocal
explorations with 8 singers meeting regularly at Christianshavns Beboerhus in Copenhagen. Together,
the group developed a music centered around rhythms and voices - transcending into another state.
These explorations eventually turned into Valby Vokalgruppe, which has gone through multiple
transformations over the years and started at some point to integrate other instruments, primarily
keyboards as an extension of - or an artificial “effect” on - the voices.
Valby Vokalgruppe collectively composed four large cross-aesthetic pieces, some of which included texts
from theatrical plays, projection of texts on the walls, dancers and classical singers - a.o. “Dada i dag”
(Dada today), performed at Arken Museum of Modern Art in 2014, “Harmony of the Exospheres”, and the
follow up “Bølger af tid og rum” (Waves of time and space), both premiered at Click Festival in Elsinore
(Helsingør) in 2016 and 2018. In 2022 Valby Vokalgruppe composed music for the performance lecture
“Usynlig arkæologi - Dianakultens mysterier” (Invisible archeology - the mysteries of the cult of Diana),
premiered at Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen. With their new album SOLIDS FOR VOICES - to be
released in autumn 2025 - Valby Vokalgruppe has returned to its root, exploring voices and rhythms.
The Copenhagen based members of Valby Vokalgruppe are all active singers, musicians and composers,
either as individual performers or in projects such as CTM, a, frk. jacobsen, ilinx, LM Madsen,
Selvhenter, Sonja LaBianca, Lil Lacy and SOLW.