Dean Frenkel

Dean Frenkel is one of the world’s leading overtone singers. He has performed and recorded vocal harmonics across many genres, working with musicians and composers including Peter Sculthorpe, George Dreyfus, The Nicholas Ensemble, the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Choir, Slava Grigoryan, Anne Norman, Jenny Thomas, Mark Clement Pollard, David Jones and Aajinta. He was formerly a member of Aajinta, Soteria Bell, Mantramancy and the Eternal Choir.

His Move albums place those harmonics in ambient and world-music settings, among them Magic Sounds (MCD 373), Barefoot in the Sky (MCD 509), Ambient Voice (MD 3240) and Cosmosis (MD 3305). He has also written soundtrack music, including for the multi-award-winning Salt, A Little Bit Mongolian and Meta-3,1/Km², a documentary about Iceland.

His throat singing has been heard on television for Channel 9’s Sunday, ABC Statewide and Guinness World Records Italy, and regularly on radio. In 2005, on ABC’s Enough Rope with Andrew Denton, he set a world record for the longest continuous vocal note: 56.92 seconds, almost double the previous mark of 29.03 seconds, while sounding two notes at once and shaping harmonic melodies with the higher voice.

He began teaching himself harmonic singing in the early 1990s after hearing overtones projected across the Goulburn River at New Year’s dawn in 1993. He creates a base note in the throat and shapes the mouth to draw out high harmonic pitches – “something like having a mosquito in your throat – it is literally a buzz,” turned into a piccolo-like sound. Long driving trips with a broken car radio became practice time: by masking the fundamental against the engine drone he learned to hear and strengthen the harmonics alone. He has researched throat-singing traditions from Mongolia to Canada, Congo, Sardinia and beyond, and remains passionate about their history and folklore.

His book The 8th Natural Wonder is available from Move Records. Performance highlights include Womadelaide 97, the Darwin Festival, solo work with the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Choir at St Patrick’s Cathedral and with the Nicholas Chamber Orchestra, the Patma Family Symphony Orchestra, the ANATS National Conference, the International Voice Symposium, ‘Physics of the Didgeridoo’ (1998–2007), Creative Innovations 2010, Music After Dark at the National Gallery of Australia, and Polyphony at Montsalvat.