Florian Wahl on Tallinn Complaint Choir project: we sang ourselves to a better place

On 13 June, Tallinn's complaint choir held a public performance on the square behind the Baltic Station market, with musician Florian Wahl conducting the premiere of a 25-member choir. The project concept originates from a participatory art initiative launched in 2005 by Finnish-German artist duo Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, which has given city residents in a hundred cities worldwide the opportunity to express their complaints as songs.

On 13 June on the square behind the Baltic Station market in Tallinn, the Tallinn complaint choir performed, consisting of 25 people whose collective grievances inspired musician Florian Wahl to compose a seven-minute choral song. "We took the negative things and sang ourselves to a better place," Wahl described the project's essence on the programme Delta.

The idea came from Helsinki

The complaint choir concept is not new-it is a participatory art project initiated in 2005 by Finnish-German artist duo Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, through which choral songs have been created in Birmingham, Helsinki, Chicago, Singapore and many other cities. Tallinn became the hundredth city.

"The idea came from Tellervo Kalleinen, and this is how a hundred cities have complained," said Wahl, adding that he said yes to the project without deliberating further. His own creative work sometimes carries a social dimension, and collective complaint-making seemed to him a natural further development of that.

15 pages of complaints

Before rehearsals, participants organised a brainstorm session, which yielded 15-16 pages of Tallinn's troubles and shortcomings. "There was a lot of material and it was initially hard to grasp, but then I started quietly picking through it and saw which ones were the funniest," explained Wahl.

The choir had singers ranging in age from 15 to 73 years old, and most of them had never performed in a choir before. In total, there were four or five rehearsals. "Everyone had a great time," Wahl confirmed.

"I can't!" was Wahl's first experience with choral composition. He admitted that he actually wrote the piece with his own solo work in mind, and adapting it for choir performance turned out to be difficult. "It's very hard to interpret it as a choral piece, and besides, I've never conducted a choir," he said.

An individualist in a collective

Wahl emphasised that the project was also a personal learning experience for him. "I'm the kind of person who is very individualistic, but I wanted to step out of my comfort zone," he said, praising his fellow participants' openness and supportive attitude.

Tallinn complaint choir's music video can be seen at the EKKM's summer jubilee exhibition "Why collars chafe and other questions," which opens on 23 July. EKKM's curator and project manager Brigit Arop explained that the project has previously been presented at, for example, the Kiasma Art Museum in Helsinki, and now they wanted to re-launch it in Estonia. "Artists often also highlight the problems of the weaker segments of society," she added.