Prior to experimental musician, vocalist, and composer Joan La Barbara’s rare performance at Rewire, she will enter into a conversation with Ceola Tunstall-Behrens about the different ways of working with the voice as an instrument throughout her career. 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. 

Ceola Tunstall-Behrens is a multidisciplinary artist, vocalist, and moderator based in Rotterdam. Working across mediums, she creates artworks, installations, experimental vocal performances, workshops, and radio broadcasts.