Overtone Industries Presents
The Spontaneous Combustion Choir World Tour of Los Angeles
Instant Improvised Chorale Music
Conducted by O-Lan Jones
With L.A. Performances
Continuing in March 2015

• Sun. 3/8 – Veterans Memorial Building (Culver City)

LOS ANGELES, CA – March 5, 2015 (Updated) – Overtone Industries is currently presenting The Spontaneous Combustion Choir World Tour of Los Angeles, a series of performances by the Spontaneous Combustion Choir for Los Angeles audiences, which started in January and runs into March 2015. In addition to performing, the choir will engage audiences in the collaborative creation of spontaneous music. The Spontaneous Combustion Choir is a catalyst for instant improvised chorale music. Conducted by O-Lan Jones, the group’s singing method builds harmonic chords, weaves melodies, and integrates rhythms, with singers who incorporate basic vowel sounds and no words; resulting in instant, cohesive, a cappella chorale music. Jones is the award-winning composer and artistic director of Overtone Industries. For additional information, please see http://www.overtoneindustries.org/spontaneous_combustion_choir.

“As a group, there is an essential joy in singing together and creating vocal music, in harmony and rhythm,” says O-Lan Jones, Conductor of the Spontaneous Combustion Choir. “An intimate connection between people is developed when we listen to and tune into each other’s voices and intentions… individual, unique voices become part of a whole, creating music greater than the sum of its parts, reaffirming our human connections.”

March Tour Date –
• Sun. 3/8/15 [3:00pm] – Spontaneous Combustion Choir in Culver City
Veterans Memorial Building – Rotunda Room
4117 Overland Ave., Culver City, CA 90230
Overtone Industries returns to Culver City with a Spontaneous Combustion Choir World Tour of Los Angeles stop at the Veterans Memorial Building. The choir will perform and invite the audience to participate in the collaborative creation of spontaneous music! This performance is made possible in part by a Culver City Performing Arts Grant with support from Sony Pictures Entertainment. Cost is “pay-what-you-can.” RSVP here.

O-Lan Jones (foreground, right) directs members of the Spontaneous Combustion Choir (photo credit: Martha Benedict)

The Spontaneous Combustion Choir –
The Spontaneous Combustion Choir is a method of improvisational chorale singing invented by Overtone Industries’ Artistic Director O-Lan Jones. Jones developed this system of singing and listening exercises over a number of years, working with trained and amateur singers in productions, performances, and workshops. The Spontaneous Combustion Choir singing method builds harmonic chords, weaves melodies, and integrates rhythms, with a group of singers using basic vowel sounds and no words; creating instant, cohesive, a capella chorale music.

Last year, Overtone Industries saw an opportunity to engage the Los Angeles community in educational participatory art with the Spontaneous Combustion Choir. The group has developed public pay-what-you-can donation workshops where anyone, regardless of past experience, can learn the unique Spontaneous Combustion Choir singing method. These Saturday morning workshops have attracted singers of all levels, as well as many newcomers who have no singing experience. Last year, Overtone Industries presented twelve public Spontaneous Combustion Choir community workshops. Workshops will resume in Spring and Summer 2015.

The program provides an opportunity for engagement and connection through the simple empathy that develops naturally between individuals working together and making creative choices as a group. Through this collaboration, the community is, therefore, strengthened through the relationships among the individuals within it. Being in touch with the natural music that emanates from our being is an essential joy and the choir intends to serve its community by providing this experience through the Spontaneous Combustion Choir program. The Spontaneous Combustion Choir singers include Emily Chase, Patty Cornell, Jesse Einstein, Ken Roht, Deon Sams, MJ Silva, Phil Ward, Cesili Williams, Silvie Zamora, and Jabez Zuniga. John Ballinger and Phil Ward are the percussionists. Michelle Magaldi, of Vibrant Productions Management, is spearheading The Spontaneous Combustion Choir World Tour of Los Angeles.

O-Lan Jones
(photo courtesy of the artist)

O-Lan Jones, Artistic Director of Overtone Industries & Spontaneous Combustion Choir Conductor –
O-Lan Jones is an award-winning actor, sound designer, writer, and composer. The press has referred to her as an “uncategorizable legend.”

Among Miz Jones’ many film credits are Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands and Mars Attacks. She has just signed on to appear in a third Burton movie, Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children, scheduled for a March 2016 release. Other screen credits include Natural Born Killers, The Truman Show, Lonesome Dove, Seinfeld, and The X-Files. As the artistic director of Overtone Industries, a company that creates new mythological operas and theatricals, she creates original stories for her productions, as well as composing and writing lyrics.

Most recently, the first phase of ICELAND, written in collaboration with Irish singer/songwriter Emmett Tinley, was featured in REDCAT’s New Original Works Festival. For the past two years, Jones has also been collaborating with Rachel Rosenthal Company’s (RRC) TOHUBOHU! Extreme Theatre Ensemble. She also recently completed a successful award-winning run of A Delicate Balance at the Odyssey Theatre, which critics credited her for “spicing up the mix throughout with sly brilliance” (Stage Scene LA) and for providing “a sarcastic breath of fresh air” (Arts In LA – Sage Award).

Overtone Industries –
Overtone Industries develops and presents new multidisciplinary operas and music theatre, bringing to life vivid, original stories and myths. Members of the organization are passionate about live performance and its power to generate transformation, as performers and audience participate together in each unfolding moment. Guided by the belief that artistic expression is an essential part of living, serving as a catalyst for both artists and audience members to understand themselves in a new way, collaboration is at the heart of Overtone’s process and each project is given the time and devotion it requires to come to life.

Overtone has produced and performed more than eighteen original works across the country. Successfully mounted Southern California productions include String of Pearls at the Met Theatre; It’s a Pretty Good Life at The Actor’s Gang, Theater Theatre, and Miles Playhouse; The Woman Who Forgot Her Sweater at [Inside] the Ford; Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands in a 25,000 square-foot abandoned car dealership; and The Woman in The Wall at the Masonic Lodge in Culver City. Overtone Industries is currently developing ICELAND, a new music theatre work being written and composed by Jones and Irish singer-songwriter Emmett Tinley.

Links –
• Overtone Industries Official Site – www.overtoneindustries.org
• The Spontaneous Combustion Choir – www.overtoneindustries.org/spontaneous_combustion_choir
• Overtone Facebook Page – http://www.facebook.com/overtoneindustries
• Overtone Twitter – twitter.com/overtoneind
• O-Lan Jones – http://www.overtoneindustries.org/o-lan_jones

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For more information, photos, to schedule an interview, or to request complimentary press tickets; please contact Green Galactic’s Lynn Tejada at 213-840-1201 or lynn@greengalactic.com.