THIS YEAR'S EXPLORATORIO

The 2022 Exploratorio “The Signified” opens creative windows into the dual worlds of meaning making and authenticity. N.E.O. artists will grapple with the influence of signs and their interpretation on arts, culture, and society, and craft musical responses that inspire vocal artistry to illuminate life experience. 

​“The Signified” as a term comes from the scientific study of semiotics. Semiotics is a broad field, but for our purposes we will focus on semiotics’ capacity to uncover how people create often hidden meaning through the use of signs and symbols. Semiotics is traditionally organized in a triadic manner, for example: a sign, a signifier, and the signified. A sign is a symbol that holds space for an object or experience (e.g. the word “chair”, its collection of letters as a symbol for something). A signifier is the interpretation of that sign that people apply to the object/experience that it represents (e.g. a thing that we sit in, a safe place, something stable, comfortable, etc). The signified is the object/experience itself (e.g. the chair itself as it exists without our labeling/interpreting it).  ​

Semiotics engages with codes, systems, and questions of meaning and authenticity, all of which have become important cultural conversations recently. That codes, systems, and meaning can easily become confused and confrontational invites the creative presence of artists to bring light and curiosity to guide others toward understanding. Join us to discover and define the experience of vocal music, and be the creators of new signs and symbols that will influence the future of voicing. ​

N.E.O. Voice Festival 2022 Schedule
June 25 (Sat)

• 1:30-4:30pm Sanctuary: soloists and composers of solo movements rehearse
• 4:30-6:30 Sanctuary: concert rehearsal for individuals on the concert 
• 6:00-7:00 Registration and games!
  
• 7:00pm Sanctuary: concert    Dress: performer’s choice
• 8:30 reception in Mayflower 

June 26 (Sun)

• 9:00am Sanctuary: Rehearsal  Dress: Concert Black
• 11:00am Service
• 12:00 lunch  (note you can change clothes if you like)
• 1:30-2:45 Barnum: Opening meeting: Self, Semiotics, Feedback Model, Guidelines for the week  
• 3:00-6:00 Sanctuary: Rehearsal 1
• 6:15-7:15 Sanctuary: Organ show and tell with Abe 

June 27 (Mon)  “SOUND”

• 9:00am-12:00 Barnum: Session 1 
  • Sound ingredients, vocal folds, vocal tract, harmonic series, ikigai
• 12:00 lunch  
• 1:00-3:00 Barnum: Session 2 “Sound and Listening”  
  • Vocal regions, filtered listening, judgment, overtone singing
• 3:30-6:30 Sanctuary: Rehearsal 2
• 6:30-8:30 personal rehearsal by appointment

June 28 (Tues)  Magical Timbre

• 9:00am-12:00 Barnum: Session 3 
  • Timbre, Brain and ear, under vowel resonant strategies, vowel clarity and overtone singing, extended techniques, timbral notation
• 12:00 lunch  
• 1:00-3:00 Barnum: Session 4 
  • Just Intonation, overtone scale, overtone notation, ikigai
• 3:30-6:30 Sanctuary: Rehearsal 3
• 6:30-7:30 Sanctuary - Organ show and tell 2
• 6:30-8:30 personal rehearsal by appointment

June 29 (Wed)    Meaning, Choices

• 9:00am-12:00 Barnum: Session 5 
  • Semiotics, neurological meaning making, meaningful compositional choices, emotion and compassion, emotion and the voice, ikigai
• 12:00 lunch  
• 1:00-4:30 Sanctuary - Rehearsal 4
• 4:30 Dinner break and personal rehearsal by appointment
• 7:00 Sanctuary - Rise and Fall concert with theater dybbuk
• 8:00 - Reception

June 30 (Thurs)   Sound Inside Sound

• 9:00am-12:00 Barnum: Session 6 
  • Voice, body and language, singing vocal hacks, ensemble resonant strategy choices, writing for under vowel, microtonal singing 
• 12:00 lunch  
• 1:00-3:00 Barnum: Session 7 
  
  
  • Compassion and leadership, improvisation
• 3:30-6:30 Sanctuary: Rehearsal 5
• 6:30-8:30 personal rehearsal by appointment

July 1 (Friday)  Your Voice, Your World

• 9:00am-12:00 Barnum: Session 8 
  • Artist as business leader, self help and singing, group reflection, networking, ikigai
• 12:00 lunch  
• 1:00-4:30 Sanctuary - Dress Rehearsal
• 4:30 done for the night

July 2 (Sat)  Exploratorio!!

• 5:00pm Sanctuary - call for concert
• 7:00pm Sanctuary - Concert   Dress: concert rainbows
• 8:30pm Reception

   
July 3 (Sun)

• 9:00am - Sanctuary   Dress: concert black
• 11:00 service
• 12:00 Festival transitions back into the world