Annabelle Plum
Annabelle Plum is a singer and vocal performer who employs her extensive vocal range of over three octaves in contemporary music, improvisation, and jazz. She specializes in experimental vocal techniques and tonal color, and she is also engaged in the interpretation of graphic scores. Plum collaborates with both Czech and international contemporary composers. She holds a degree in Theatre Arts from Brown University (USA) and in Performance Design and Practice from Central St. Martins – University of the Arts London (UK). She studied extended vocal techniques with Jonathan Hart Makwaia (France, USA) and voice for the Noh Theatre with Hisa Uzawa (Kanze School) in Tokyo. Plum has completed internships at Panthéâtre (Paris), Richard Foreman’s Ontological Theatre (New York), and The Wooster Group (New York).
Since 2009, she lives in Prague, where she leads vocal workshops and teaches. From 2013 to 2015, she was a guest lecturer in experimental vocal work at the Department of Alternative and Puppet Theatre at DAMU. Plum is a founding member of the trio KlangWesen (Annabelle Plum – voice, Žaneta Vítová – accordion and keyboards, Kateřina Vacková – double bass and voice), which explores music at the intersection of improvisation, experimentation, and free jazz. She is also part of the microtonal improvisation ensemble Quarter to Three (Annabelle Plum – voice, Marek Kimei Matvija – shakuhachi, Steve Cohn – piano and quarter-tone piano) and a founding member of the Topos Kolektiv. In the past, she was the frontwoman of the rock band Die Schatten.
Plum has presented world premieres of works by composers Michael Mantler, Petr Hora, Anna Vtípilová, Michal Wróblewski, and Ian Mikyska. In 2020, she premiered two new chamber operas: Okno by Petr Hora and .finitika by Patrik Kakao. In the same year, she appeared as a soloist with Orchestra Berg in the Czech premiere of Sweetheart, Goodbye! by Austrian composer Brigitta Muntendorf.
In 2024, she again performed as a soloist with Orchestra Berg at the world premiere of Das grosse Zeitalter by Michal Nejtek. In 2025, she presented the world premiere of the opera 4711 – Intercourse of Ghosts by composer Hiroya Miura in New York. In the same year, she was cast in the world premiere of the opera Předřeč šelmy by Petr Hora, directed by Jiří Adámek Austerlitz.
Plum continues to collaborate with international artists on contemporary music, free jazz, and improvised music projects.
Projects
KlangWesen (voice, accordion, double bass)
Topos Kolektiv (site-specific performance)
Quarter to Three (quarter-tone improvised music)
Annabelle Plum a Žaneta Vítová (voice & accordion)
Die Schatten (alternative rock)
Discography
Quarter to Three (Polí5 2017),
Die Schatten: Erstesmal (online self-release, 2018),
Die Schatten: Revolución (Polí5 2021),
Interference: Annabelle Plum & Žaneta Vítová (Ma Records, 2021)
Folk Songs from Imginary Places: Annabelle Plum, Byron Asher, Ian Mikyska ( Ma Records & Searching Records, 2025)
Radioproject
Stanice Nula: Topos Kolektiv for Czech National Radio
