TIC! The Improvisers’ Choirs
“Jenni Roditi’s vocal improvisation choir was poignantly reaffirming of the power of the individual voice, and the difference it can make as part of a collective, not least in the creative practice of collaborative music-making, but as a societal allegory.” Conference Report, Women In/and Musical Leadership, Newsletter of the Royal Musical Association, review of their concert at Club Inégales (March 8th 2019). Part of the International Women’s Day performance and conference, Senate House, London 2019 where Jenni gave the keynote speech.
A 3-minute film introducing TIC!
Coming Up
TIC! is currently being intergrated into Vocal Tai Chi and vice versa.
Come to the last two sessions August 16th and September 13th to get involved.
Message Jenni
Non-Classical winner
TIC was winner of Non-Classical ‘Battle of the Bands’ in 2018, judged by Gabriel Prokofiev, founder of Non-Classical, Alan Davey, Head of BBC Radio 3, Dominic McGonigal, composer, and Natalia Franklin Pearce, head of Non-Classical.
TIC! At the Victoria pub in Hackney, singing in the Nonclassical Battle of the Bands 2018, with Gabriel Prokofiev on the sound desk. We won!!
“TIC! really do represent the voices of contemporary London, including musicians of Indian, Turkish, Afro-Caribbean, Irish and French backgrounds, with a rich experience of styles and tradition.”
Peter Wiegold, Club Inégales, Artistic Director.
Introduction
We aim to lift the practice of shaped vocal improvisation up into the light of widely appealing public performance. TIC consists of a group of performers, selected through audition, who are agile and reliable improvisers who come from a diverse range of styles.
Mission
The mission is to develop different fluid forms within which creative improvised group and solo singing can be discovered. Roditi refines techniques in response to the group’s changing lineup of singers. TIC create exploratory spontaneous choral compositions holding a vision to make vocal music which is original, exploratory, wide-ranging, and accessible.
The richly combined styles of voices from many traditions and backgrounds bring a unique identity to the music, underpinned by Roditi’s broad sweeping ‘genre-unrestricted’ aesthetic. Singers in TIC bring their specialisms and are also open to learning from others and willing to let go of their traditions to try something new. Flexibility is a core skill in the ensemble. Singers take musical direction from Jenni and participate in creating music established through the conducting, based on a simple signalling system and intuition.
TIC hand signals are becoming part of the new IVI training 2026
For more on the combining of two practices in the new third practice (IVI) see here.
Introducing LAND MASS
A Vocal-Visual Liturgy for the Land
Improvised by TIC, The Improvisers’ Choir
Filmmaker Sara Pozin
Special guests
Toby Thompson, spoken word
Cassie Yukawa-McBurney, piano
Singers
Uran Apak, Üztan Aydin-Corbett, Rouhangeze Baichoo, Veronica Chacon, Shreyans Iyer, Segun Lee-French, Camilo Menjura, Ebe Oke, Candida Valentino, Yan White, Marcia Willis
Music and film directed by Jenni Roditi
Audience comments
“Not only a Land Mass – a Soul Mass” Wallee McDonnell, Producer, Celebrate Life Events.
“As if the voices are rising up from the land itself”. Simon McBurney, Complicité
“Koyaanisqatsi (film music by Philip Glass) looks down on the world from above. Land Mass looks up at the world from below”. Lionel Roth, friend.
“For some reason I felt a Biblical sequence in your piece, as if it began with Creation, with that question of ‘who creates?’ and then the creation unfolds – all the way to an Exodus of some kind”. Daniel Fishel, friend.
“I was spellbound, weeping, raging and enchanted – it opens up the whole vessel of the human being.” Sarah Verney, senior music therapist, friend.
“Neither preaching nor catastrophising, this is an opportunity to see things as they really are; to feel the power and emotion in the voices that accompany each segment; and to revisit the text of the opening poem, to remind us of the questions we can ask ourselves daily.” John Bradley, singer, friend.
“Beautiful work, deep and emotive, thank you.” Anon
“We never hear this depth and range of voice – but now we have! The layers of humanity are like geology in sound.” Liz Dilnot-Johnson, composer, friend.
“Land Mass is nature organising itself through human beings.” Peter Leanse, friend.
“It’s a masterpiece. I could’ve listened for another two hours, sublime.” Kate Shortt, cellist, friend.
LAND MASS, the soundtrack
LAND MASS, the movie
Production Team
Sound recording and mastering
Sound producer Asier Leatxe Ibañez d’Opakoa
Co-producer Jenni Roditi
2021 Remaster by Steve Parr
Orb mixed by Steve Parr
Recording assistant Jay Johnson
Mixing assistant Odette Souza
Producer
Jaka Skapin
Funding was gratefully received from Arts Council England in 2015 and PRS Foundation in 2019.
Donations were gratefully received from Marigold Foods founder Patrick Tobin, and Professor John Sloboda, Guildhall School of Music.
TIC are grateful to Cassie Yukawa-McBurney and Simon McBurney for listening to the material and conjuring the title Land Mass.
The journey of the music in Land Mass
Starting with the poem by Toby Thompson titled Bird Bath, the tracks run through a farming year (with Seed and Birds as transitional moments throughout): Plough, Sow, (Seed), Root, (Birds), Sap, Bud, (Seed), Stem, (Birds), Sprout, Reap, (Seed), Husk, Yield, (Birds), and finally Orb.
Please see this blog post for a more detailed description of the narrative journey of the music through the seasons of a year on the land.
The final track of Land Mass is Orb – a solo vocal improvisation by Jenni with Cassie Yukawa McBurney, piano, playing Bach’s Prelude in C.
TIOC! and TIEC!
The Improvisers’ Open Choir was founded in 2016, and The Improvisers’ Essence Choir in 2017. These community projects ran consistently up to and through the lockdowns, at which point they were adapted for online sessions and renamed TIUC! The Improvisers’ Un-Choir.
TIOC! was for all singers and used the same methods as TIC. TIEC! was for all singers, working closely with meditation, improvisation and incorporating signals.
Since the pandemic it has not been practical to start these choirs in person again, though it is not out of the question they may pick up again!
TIGC! – The Improvisers’ Global Choir
New thought – as of March 23rd 2025. The singers for TIGC (pronounced TIGSee) would be from different world vocal traditions and the expanding styles which grow from each, improvising together. It would be a ‘North, South, East and West’ collaboration – a 360 chamber choir with specialist singers coming together to improvise new music. It would include conducted improvisation (‘conduction’) from scratch and starting point ideas, – as ‘open short scores’, if possible, if not, described in other ways.
Jenni has a list of names of singers based in London, from Iran, Burundi, Ghana, Senegal, Venezuela, Turkey, Bolivia, Iraq, and India, to name the main areas so far identified, as well as singers that come from classical, folk, jazz, experimental etc. (31.03.25). Initial research is currently being carried out.
YOUR CHOIR and TIC!
Would you like to stretch your choir’s experience of creative voice work through guided improvisation? Jenni can come and work with your choir. Get in touch to explore possibilities.
Chapter content
There is some detailed commentary on TIC and how it came about. To access this please see the writer link.