12th World Symposium on Choral Music

Anna-Maria Hefele

OVERTONE SINGING

Country: Germany

This presentation on overtone singing will be a combination of lecture, artistic performance and an interactive workshop. Overtone singing is a fascinating vocal technique where it seems like one person is singing two notes at the same time. This technique can be used artistically as a musical instrument or it can function as an educational tool for singers, choral conductors and voice teachers. The capability of being able to hear and control the harmonics in the voice refines the singer’s audio perception regarding timbre and vowel colour and improves blending and intonation in any vocal ensemble.


Anna-Maria Hefele is an overtone singer and voice artist. In 2018 she graduated as Master of Arts in Elemental Music and Dance Pedagogy with classical singing as her main subject from the Carl Orff Institute at the Mozarteum Salzburg. 2014 she published her YouTube video “polyphonic overtone singing” that became viral and has resulted in more than 13 million views.

Anna-Maria has written compositions and arrangements for polyphonic solo voice since 2006. From 2005-2009 she was a maker of display models and studied at Deutsches Museum München, where she graduated as the best of her year in Germany. Since 2010 Anna-Maria has worked as a soloist together with different ensembles, choirs and orchestras such as Kammerchor I Vocalisti, Supersonus - The European Resonance Ensemble, Orchester der Kulturen and The Lady & The Cat.

As a musician Anna-Maria frequently performs with contemporary ballet, circus and dance theatre productions with harp, nyckelharpa, voice and composition. As a music pedagogue she holds masterclasses, lectures and workshops in overtone singing technique, its acoustics and artistic application; also yodeling and vocal improvisation.