VOICE
Jo Truman has been experimenting and exploring with her voice since she was a toddler. She developed her vocal flexibility through mimesis at an early age- learning through mimicry of the sounds around her- her squeaky toys, opera singers off her father’s records, and birds (which inspired her unique repertoire of microtonal vocal techniques in later years) . She ultimately developed a vocal range of 3.3 octaves. She also included piano improvisations and developed narrative driven themes for her improvisations for voice and piano, foundations for practice that has developed throughout her career creating original concept driven radio works, installations and projects. She studied Classical piano from the age of 4 to her teens.
Whilst simultaneously studying visual arts in Sydney, Jo became involved with improvising ensembles in Sydney such as John Rose and the Relative Band, Jim Denley and others. It is through these projects she connected with European improvisers such as Luc Houtkamp and dreamed of becoming part of the European “family” of improvising musicians.
That dream was realised when she received a rare international Study Grant from the Australian Music Board (Arts Council) in the late ’80’s. She travelled to London and became involved with the London Musicians Collective. It is here she met and worked with great vocalists such as Phil Minton, Maggie Nicols, Lindsay Cooper and others. This led to several commissions and major festivals In the UK and Europe.
Jo Truman performs in concert at the Plasy Monastery, Bohemia, Czech Republic site of the Hermit International Arts Symposium.
One such project was Songs From A Prison Diary. Composed by Phil Minton and Veryan Weston, this project was commissioned by the Le Man Jazz festival and Strasbourg Musica, France and involved a choir 28 singers from many different musical genres, with many seasoned improvisors amongst them. Composed around poetry written by Ho Chi Minh mapping a day spent in a Chinese prison, from dawn to dusk, this was a seminal work for which Jo was assigned the role of opening vocal improvisor. Jo drew on memories of improvising in the Cell Block theatre, once a colonial women’s prison, in Darlinghurst, with its atmosphere of entrapment yearning for freedom and release informing her vocal improvisation.
Opening vocal improvisation in Songs From A Prison Diary:-
Jo Truman & The Bull’s Eye Ensemble- Koln Stadtgarten
Jean Schwarz/JoTruman Project
Jo was privileged to be invited by the esteemed French composer composer Jean Schwarz and his wife, Celia, to be a guest at their home outside Paris to embark on a project involving Jo as improvising vocalist and Jean “playing” technology in recording improvised duos in their studio “Celia Studios”. Three of the resulting pieces – singing in tongues, keening song and flock- later featured on her solo CD commission sdreamings from Staalplaat records (later receiving a four star review by John Shand in the Sydney morning Herald)
Singing in Tongues:-
https://on.soundcloud.com/snuHtR8XGI3npADKRt
Jo was invited by the Executive producer of WDR Koln’s Audioakustisches Kunst, Klaus Schoning, to create and compose a work in the high end sound studios studio of WDR which involved her singing, Yedaki and piano playing. The result was a 30 minute work in seven movements she called sdreamings , which was the title work on her CD of the same name.
https://on.soundcloud.com/9N0wMgusWxFu5E4C7Y
In Australia Jo has performed at MONA (Hobart, Tasmania) on several occasions. MONA commissioned Jo for a significant festival contribution at MONA FOMA involving the creation of two new works : dream slash nightmare and Elements (for the Morning Meditation series). Both works involved a trio with Len Marks (electric guitar) and Daniel Grinvalds (live sound processing) and her use of extended microtonal vocal techniques and 3 octave range from dark mezzo to high soprano. Dream Slash Nightmare – a 30 minute vocal marathon- was recorded by the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). Jo has also performed in “The Void” (ensemble with Freddie Hill, Paul Heron and Brad Madigan) and the outdoor arena (Andrew Milne (electronics) Truman voice and keyboards. :-
In 2017, Jo was invited to perform for the ” This is A Voice” at the Sydney Powerhouse Museum. For this performance she utilised graphic scores she had prepared to “map” the performance.
In 2020 Jo was invited to participate in a solo performance for the Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival at Mary’s Underground, Circular Quay , Sydney, as “support” for Elysian Fields. Jo created a work of sonic reflections on the isolation of Covid utilising piano, voice and pre recorded bird sounds.
Review Limelight Magazine:-
https://limelight-arts.com.au/reviews/elysian-fields-sydney-international-womens-jazz-festival/
More recently Jo collaborated with the expat Russian pianist Roman Stolyar on a series of zoom piano duets between Berlin and the Blue Mts. This is a project both artists are hoping to continue in Berlin at a later date.
One of the Zoom series:-