Choroi was founded in order to create a space for new musical ideas and insights. We develop instruments of quality, which generate a wide range of nuances of sound. We share our ideas and work in teams all over the world.
Musicians, music teachers, master craftsmen and those working in our social therapeutic workshops are all involved.
The human being is the focus of our work.
Philosophy
Our aim is to foster music-making in groups and to explore new worlds of musical sound. Choroi instruments with their many sound colours reflect a whole spectrum of musical experience.
Our instruments are made in independent social therapeutic workshops, where community experience is central to our work. Choroi instruments are made by people with special needs or those who are socially disadvantaged. With their varied skills, they can contribute to a new cultural impulse. From the raw materials to the finishing touches, the crafting of high quality instruments enhances their self esteem and recognition in society.
These instruments are produced in a co-operative chain, from musicians with a vision, to producers, distributors and customers worldwide. They change the way we play, how we listen and experience music. Our instruments also inspire children and teenagers to be creative with music. With their organic shapes and intricate inner construction, Choroi instruments have a uniquely free and ‘spatial’ sound quality.
History
CHOROI was founded by the Dutch musician, music researcher and instrument-maker Norbert Visser. He studied violin at the music conservatory in the Hague, and then worked as a concert violinist and music teacher.
Together with his wife Carolien Visser, he researched new qualities of musical sound, inspired by the musician Anny von Lange. While exploring new ways to develop the violin, they created other new kinds of instruments. These were the basis of the present Choroi instruments.
In 1964, Norbert Visser set up the foundation ‘Child and Instrument’ together with the doctor and curative teacher Bernhard Lievegoed. This led to the design and crafting of innovative instruments with a new and unique tonal quality. Many Choroi instruments were especially developed for children, so that they could learn to freely improvise music from an early age.
The first foundation later evolved into the “CHOROI-Foundation”, which then finally became today’s “CHOROI-Association”.
In 1966 Norbert Visser founded “Scorlewald”, the first social therapeutic community for adults with special needs in North Holland. In the years to follow, similar workshops were set up around Europe, where new stringed, percussion and wind instruments were developed, including the Children’s Harp and the Pentatonic Choroi Flute. These are now played in many countries all over the world.