TEAM
Franziska Welti
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Franziska Welti is a singer, choir director and artist who teaches singing and improvisation at the Conservatory of Winterthur, Switzerland. She leads the two choirs Singfrauen Winterthur, and Singfrauen Berlin as well as the vocal ensemble vox feminae. She regularly organizes singing workshops both within and outside Switzerland, including courses for young people in conflict regions , e.g. in the South Caucasus. She has been awarded various prizes, including the Culture Award of the City of Winterthur in 2009 and the Music Recognition Award of the Canton of Zurich in 2018. In 2020, she completed the Certificate of Advanced Studies «Arts and International Cooperation» at the Zurich University of the Arts.
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Katja Joho
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Katja Joho is a linguist and works as the managing director of Iras Cotis, an organisation which fosters intercultural and interreligious collaboration. Intrigued by the mutual exchange across borders, she supports the project ChorOnline, where dedicated musicians are willing to share their cultural and musical knowledge and thereby connect people over long distances by the means of singing. Katja enjoys taking part in these virtual singing workshops whenever time permits.
Maria Ustenko​
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Maria is a Ukrainian philologist living in Berlin. She teaches children Ukrainian language and literature. She loves authentic songs from many cultures and countries and researches singing traditions in various regions of the Ukraine. She finds that learning about song traditions in different countries is a wonderful way of getting to know some of their culture, history and traditions. Understanding others through their songs is also a key to understanding herself. For Maria, singing is an unbelievable aesthetic pleasure and sometimes even a therapy.
Susanne Kalkowski​
Susanne Kalkowski is an adult educator and lives near Aachen. She works at an adult education center and is in charge for the program parts health education, culture & creativity. Since her school days she has sung in various choirs. Her first contact with music from Southern and Eastern Europe was through international folk dances. She discovered ChorOnline more or less by chance in the spring of 2021 and since then she really enjoys singing 'together' via Zoom together with people from different countries, looking beyond one's own horizon and the connection that this creates in every workshop.
Former team members
fiona fröhlich
Fiona Fröhlich is a retired general practitioner and passionate choir singer. Thanks to the Singfrauen Winterthur (conductor Franziska Welti) she is in touch with (folk) songs of different musical cultures. As traveller and host, she met various singers of different countries, e.g. the Armenian Duo Tiezerk, who lived at her place in Winterthur during their Swiss trip 2019, or members of Andhira in 2020.
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The project ChorOnline offers the possibility for Fiona to catch up again with these talented singers and to listen and sing along with them and other musicians of various cultures, continually learning new songs.
Alicia Joho​
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Alicia Joho has studied International Relations and Human Rights in London and is currently working as an intern at the UN. In addition, music is a constant companion in Alicia's life, as she plays the piano and organ, and sang in various choirs from an early age. The combination of choral music and international sounds appeals to her very much, which is why she supports the ChorOnline project. She appreciates learning about different traditions thanks to new technologies, and sharing musical moments with a group of singers from all over the world.
Lea Hagmann
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Lea Hagmann is a lecturer and postdoc researcher in ethnomusicology and the Director of Studies in the World Arts and Music course at the University of Bern. One of her major areas of interest is in the intermediate area of music and language, especially in relation to the different vocal qualities and chants with wordless syllables (vocables) of different music cultures. Lea has regularly attended voice workshops with the renowned voice coach Kristin Linklater from 2015 and has received a Certificate of Advanced Studies in voice production/speaking from Zurich University of the Arts.