Blood Choir is a performance work created by converting blood glucose readings into musical notes. Drawing on conversations and interactions with diabetes researchers Prof. Roy Taylor (Newcastle University) and Dr Kathryn King (Sunderland University), the work explores blood as a symbol of affiliation, disease, ethnicity, violence and sacrifice.

Set against the backdrop of the global diabetes pandemic, Blood Choir is a vocal work and associated participatory project that uses the blood glucose readings of diabetes patients to determine the pitch of the sung notes.

Blood Choir takes several forms: (i) an audio-only version; (ii) a version for live voices and soundtrack; and (iii) a ‘self-test’ version that requires singers to monitor their own blood sugar levels and eat food during the performance (producing higher notes). With no score to follow, no lyrics to learn, no previous singing experience assumed and no conductor required to perform the work (only a instructions for singers to follow), Blood Choir lends itself to performance in a wide range of settings and presentational formats.

Blood Choir’s appropriation of the glucose test procedure has resulted in a work that straddles conventional boundaries between ‘music’, ‘sound’ and ‘performance’ (there can’t be many musical compositions that require the performers to draw blood!). Sometimes meditative, sometimes cacophonous, the work’s texture becomes gradually more ‘viscous’ over the course of its twenty-plus minutes, the accumulating dissonances perpetrating fleeting assaults on the ear that remind us of sound’s innate lure and ferocity, and the visceral qualities of the human voice.

The ever-adventurous UK Choir of the Year, Voices of Hope, were totally committed as they shivered, sang and literally bled for their art! Fascinating insights into the body’s capacity to transform and transmute. An eclectic array of foodstuff was consumed, and as blood sugar levels rose, they were monitored and assigned a musical note. To hear the chemical processes made manifest in sound in this way was compelling and unnerving…the voice of hidden otherness breaking through. I frequently use the phrase “listen to your body’s voice”, and today I heard that voice in a new and captivating way. An exploratory and participatory creative process by John Kefala Kerr, formed from his direct experience of living with diabetes…sweet in the best sense!” (Paula Turner, Leverhulme Fellow, Director Dry Water Arts)

Videos: Blood Choir test events for World Diabetes Day

Anyone who is self-testing can contribute to Blood Choir simply by submitting a blood glucose reading using the drop-down menu below.

JOIN the Blood Choir now by sending us your most recent blood sugar reading:

Produced by KOPCO with financial support from Newcastle Culture Investment Fund.