Open Sing-Along «Hát Cùng Nhau» (Let Us Sing Together) with Kerstin Behnke

   An evening of singing with strangers, no audition and no sheet-music literacy required. German choral professor Kerstin Behnke stands in front of anyone willing to open their mouth, from trained choir singers to people who have never sung in a group in their life.

   The sing-along closes a choral conducting workshop run by Goethe-Institut Hanoi and VYMI, but this part is open to the wider city rather than to the profession. There is no cap on numbers.

   The evening is built on two materials:

• — vocal improvisation, led live by the conductor
• — accessible choral repertoire that asks for no technique

   Kerstin Behnke builds her work around listening: to the score, to the person next to you, to the block of sound taking shape in the room. She is Professor of Choral Conducting at the Franz Liszt University of Music Weimar, has directed the Berliner Cappella and still conducts the Berlin chamber choir TONIKUM.

   Come if you are curious how your voice sounds folded into thirty others, or if you sang in a choir once and have not been back since. Registering in advance matters here, because the organisers need the headcount.

   Singing together remains the fastest way for a room of strangers to become a group.