The Complaints Choir

The Complaints Choir of Edinburgh

1 August – 1 September 2013

The Complaints Choir of Edinburgh, 2013, photograph by Kat Gollock

The Complaints Choir invites people to come together to share their complaints, and sing them out loud. Conceived by Finnish artists, Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta Kalleinen, as a literal expression of the Finnish phrase Valituskuoro (or, its English equivalent, a chorus of complaints), the artists have worked with city dwellers around the world to realise Complaints Choirs in Birmingham, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Hamburg, Chicago, Singapore, Copenhagen and Tokyo.

The project begins with an open invitation to inhabitants of a city, to join a choir, submit their complaints, and then participate in a series of workshops led by a composer, who works with the choir to compose a new song for live performance. Such is the success of the project, that since 2007, 100s of DIY Complaints Choirs have been formed around the world, following a 9-step guide established by the artists.

For Parley, the composers Daniel Padden and Peter Nicholson will work with the citizens of Edinburgh to develop a Complaints Choir for the city. Padden and Nicholson have collaborated together in the past through their work in The One Ensemble, and together and independently have both developed a keen following for their experimental new music. As well as experiencing live performances of Edinburgh’s own Complaints Choir, festival visitors will have the opportunity to situate Edinburgh’s complaints in a global context, with the first UK showing of Kalleinen and Kalleinen’s The Complaints Choir, a four channel video installation documenting the nine Complaints Choirs created and led by the artists themselves.

The video installation of The Complaints Choir is located at: 169 Rose Street

Supported by Crowne Plaza Edinburgh – The Roxburghe.

Times and locations listed below.

Free admission

Core funders: