(Nederlands hieronder)

Welcome to the Olga Vocal Ensemble community! Your support will ensure we can continue doing what we do - and to be able to finish producing our CD we need your help. We look at this project as a community, and in Olga's community, you can nurture our artistic vision and help us stay active and bring new music to your door!

We have faced difficult times because of COVID-19 - we had to cancel tours and concerts and postpone recording sessions. However, we've been able to keep working through weekly zoom meetings, even though we are far away from each other, with Phil and Pétur in Iceland, and Arjan, Jonathan, and Matt in the Netherlands. Despite the challenge of physical separation and long-distance communication, we have managed to stay active, and our new way of working remotely has given us a lot of new ideas.

Now, due to lighter restrictions, we are finally able to get together and record some beautiful music together.

The Album

We are proud to present to you our new CD, which we call Aurora.

Aurora borealis paints beautiful colours in the sky in the darkest of times, something we will do with our voices. We picked our favourite songs - songs that inspire us, songs that make us feel warm and fuzzy inside, songs that we love to listen to and love to sing.

Especially in these difficult times, we wanted to make something personal to us, something that would bring people together despite all the separation and isolation, something that would show that our togetherness is greater than our distance.

A light in the darkness, glimmering harmony, dancing voices - the darker the world becomes, the clearer we see Aurora.

We hope you will like it, and thank you so much for being part of our community!

The Vinyl

We're excited to say that, for the first time ever, we will make a vinyl record to accompany our CD. It will be super cool and doubtless a collector's item pretty soon.

Olga T-shirts and Woolen Hats

Get our official band t-shirt with our mascot, Ketill Olguson on the front. And our first bass Pétur is knitting a series of Ketill Olguson hats out of Icelandic wool - it's a limited offer with only 10 hats available. Get one while you can!

Check out our version of Otche Nash (Our Father) by Nikolay Kedrov. It will be on the CD! LISTEN HERE!

The Plan

July - We'll record the CD in the Utrecht Pieterskerk in the Netherlands. At the same time, we will be crowdfunding like crazy people. Also time to apply to Buma/Stemra for music rights.

August - Editing, mastering, and printing the CDs happens now!

September - We'll send you the Aurora CDs. Exciting! We'll also host a livestream Q&A and present some of our new music.

October - We'll send you the Ketill Olguson t-shirts and hand-knitted Icelandic woolen Ketill Olguson hats (knitted by our first bass Pétur Oddbergur).

November - We'll send the Aurora Vinyls to you!

Stay tuned on our social media for updates during our crowdfunding.

The Band

Olga is a five-man a cappella vocal ensemble, founded in 2012 in Utrecht. The five members - Matthew Lawrence Smith (tenor), Jonathan Ploeg (tenor), Arjan Lienaerts (baritone), Pétur Oddbergur Heimisson (bass), and Philip Barkhudarov (bass) - bring a wide range of sound and experience to the group. Our programs, mixing classical, folk, pop, and jazz, are as varied as our nationalities – Dutch, Icelandic, English, and Russian-American!

On top of the music and the voices, we always strive to bring charisma to our concerts and, most importantly, a strong connection with our audiences. Concerts shouldn't be stiff or academic, they should be relaxed and exciting! And that's what Olga is all about.

For more information find us on our Website, on Youtube, and on Facebook.

In een wereld waarin de mensen steeds verder uit elkaar groeien en geïsoleerd dreigen te raken, zoekt Olga naar dat wat ons dichter bij elkaar brengt. Verlichting in het donker, glinsterende harmonie, dansende stemmen, humor en melancholie. Het ensemble presenteert een album dat zeer persoonlijk is en ons op een muzikale manier herinnert aan het feit dat ons samenzijn groter is dan de afstand. Hoe donkerder de wereld wordt, hoe duidelijker Aurora zichtbaar wordt.

Aurora is het vierde album van Olga Vocal Ensemble. Dit album, ons meest persoonlijk tot nu toe, bevat vocale muziek in verschillende stijlen en uit verschillende tijden, maar met één gezamenlijk thema: Aurora. Nu de corona-crisis ons in duisternis heeft gehuld, zowel de samenleving als geheel als de cultuursector, schijnt het licht van de muziek feller dan ooit als baken van hoop. Wij hopen het publiek in deze tijden van duisternis, licht te kunnen bieden door middel van onze muziek.

We hebben in het verleden goede ervaringen gehad met het gebruik van crowdfunding voor het realiseren van een album. Wij denken dat we in deze tijden, waarin mensen graag de cultuursector willen steunen, ook deze crowdfunding tot een goed einde zullen kunnen brengen.