:: Being Dufay

 

John Potter, tenor
Ambrose Field, electronic musician

 

Ambrose Field created Being Dufay in 2007, using extracts from Dufay’s songs and motets sung by John Potter. Although it was conceived in the first instance as a studio album, it was always the intention to be able to perform the work in concert. In this hour-long event John and Ambrose present what is in effect a studio sound world, realised live.  Dufay’s music is presented intact: this is not something weird and alien, but rather a sort of  'investigation' into the potential already in the original material. John sings the Dufay lines, while Ambrose multiplies and modifies the material from his laptop, re-mixing material from more than one hundred original tracks. The result is a rich, contemporary sound world which retains the essence of fifteenth century Franco-Flemish polyphony.

 

Parts of the piece have been broadcast by BBC Radio 3, and a CD will be released by ECM in due course. A sample of an early mix can be heard on the audio player below.