Complaints Choir is a

community art Community art, also known as social art, community-engaged art, community-based art, and, rarely, dialogical art, is the practice of art based in and generated in a community setting. It is closely related to social practice (art), social practice ...

project that invites people to sing about their

complaint In legal terminology, a complaint is any formal legal document that sets out the facts and legal reasons (see: cause of action) that the filing party or parties (the plaintiff(s)) believes are sufficient to support a claim against the party ...

s in a

choir A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which ...

together with fellow complainers. The first Complaints Choir was organized in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

(UK) in 2005, followed by the Complaints Choirs of

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

and

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

in 2006. The project was initiated by artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen. A video installation consisting of the documentation of the public performances of the four choirs were shown at

Kiasma ) , established = (Museum of Contemporary Art) (opening of Kiasma building) , dissolved = , location = Helsinki, Finland , type = Art museum , accreditation = , key_holdings = , co ...

(Helsinki, Finland), S.M.A.K. (Ghent, Belgium) and Museum Fridericianium Kassel (Germany) among other venues. When the video clips of the choirs were distributed through online magazines and video sharing websites, the idea spread quickly to many other countries. To date additional Complaints Choirs have been organized in Bodø (Norway), Poikkilaakso primary school (Helsinki, Finland),

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

(Hungary),

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

(Illinois, United States), Juneau (Alaska),

Gabriola Island Gabriola Island is one of the Gulf Islands in the Strait of Georgia in British Columbia (BC), Canada. It is about east of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, to which it is linked by a 20-minute ferry service. It has a land area of about and a resid ...

(Canada),

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

(Australia),

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

Wrocław Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, rou ...

(Poland),

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Durham, North Carolina Durham ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Durham County, North Carolina, Durham County. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County, North Carolina, Orange County and Wake County, North Carol ...

Enschede Enschede (; known as in the local Twents dialect) is a municipality and city in the eastern Netherlands in the province of Overijssel and in the Twente region. The eastern parts of the urban area reaches the border of the German city of Gronau ...

(

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, as part of its international Grenswerk art festival) and

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

(Japan).Complaints Choir - Schott’s Vocab Blog - NYTimes.com
/ref> In 2006 in

, a complaints choir that was to be in a festival was prohibited from performing by the government. The Singapore government's

Media Development Authority The Media Development Authority (abbreviation: MDA) was a statutory board of the Singapore Government, under the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI). History MDA was formed on 1 January 2003 by the merger of Singapore Broadcasting ...

refused to issue a permit because some members of the choir were foreigners and some of the lyrics touched upon "domestic affairs". Reuters quoted the festival organizer as saying, "Our conductor is Malaysian, so how could the choir go ahead without him?" The name 'Complaints Choir' is a literal translation of the long-established Finnish expression ''valituskuoro''; English has the expression "a chorus of complaints". One of the complaints mentioned in the Helsinki version was the fact that the Finns were always beaten by the Swedes in the

Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...

. A few months later, Finland won the contest for the first time, with Sweden coming fifth.

References

Bibliography

''The choir wants your complaint'', BBC, January 12, 2006

''Complaints Choir complains to full house - Embrace your inner complainer!'', Helsingin Sanomat, March 27, 2006
* Mika Hannula: ''The Art of Complaining'', Kunstkritikk, January 23, 2006
''A Complaint Choir, Voicing Displeasure'', NPR Weekend Edition, January 6, 2007

Evgenia Ivanova: ''Musical moaning'', The St. Petersburg Times, September 22, 2006

Patrick Cox: ''Complaints Choirs Worldwide'', BBC World, December 12, 2006

* ttp://www.dradio.de/dkultur/sendungen/profil/613944/ Martin Koch: ''Singende Nörgler'', Deutschlandradio Kultur, April 4, 2007* ''Lost & Found'', published by S.M.A.K., Ghent, 2006,
John Bailey: ''It's sing when you're whining'', The Age, June 3, 2007

External links

Complaints Choirs Worldwide official page
* {{authority control British contemporary artists British choirs Performance artist collectives Culture in Birmingham, West Midlands Musical groups established in 2005