About us (in English)

Women's voice choir 

"Audienda Tokyo Yokohama" 

Our choir was established in January 2012. 

What does "Audienda" means? 

Audienda comes from a Latin word, audire (verb for I: audio), which means something to hear or listen to. Audienda is the feminine gerundive of audio - to fit to the concept of our choir. 

Our choir's logo

Purple, a color regarded as standing for nobleness, is the main color of our logo. It is also seen as a feminine color in Europe. In designing this logo, we also thought of Murasaki Shikibu (literally translated: Lady Purple), one of the most renowned female writers from Japan, where our choir is based.   

Our choir's concept

With this choir we want to pursue European choir music under the guidance of a German musician (conductor, singer, composer, arranger), Alexander Naji, in order to seek new possibilities to express Western choir music in Japan. 

We perform mainly European pieces from the Renaissance to the modern to the contemporary era with Latin, German, Italian, and English texts. These pieces include J.G. Rheinberger, Messe in A op. 126 (three-part piece with organ), R. Schuman, Romanzen II op. 91 (three to six-part piece, a cappella), selected three-part a cappella works from Monteverdi's Canzonette and many other beautiful works. By practicing and performing these pieces under the direction of Mr. Naji and his 'groovy' conducting, we strive for 'real' European music expression. 

We pursue authentic European music expression that is difficult for the Japanese/non-European due to their different cultural backgrounds under the guidance of Mr. Naji, one of the few native German musicians/music instructors based in Japan. Mr. Naji has experience in instructing Japanese/non-European singers and choirs. 

In our practice and performance we emphasize not only the correctness of pronunciation and accent of European languages, but also a sense of 'linguistic rhythms' and musical interpretation and expression based on this sense. 

Concretely we work to improve our choir skills in the following aspects: 

(1) Pronunciation: Right pronunciation (there are about twenty vowels in European languages) and acute accent (or 'Betonung' in German). 

(2) Comprehension: Understanding the meaning of each word constituting a text as well as the text (Note that translating a text is not enough). 

(3) Improvement of each members's singing abilities and the vibrancy of the whole choir. 

We plan about two public performances (spring and fall) annually. 

We rehearse every Thursday in Gotanda, Tokyo. 

For inquiry, please contact us at audiendaty at gmail.com.