:: Biography

John Potter’s performing career began in the seventies, when to his surprise he found himself singing with Ward Swingle’s English group known as Swingle II. In rapid succession he co-founded and then left the avant-garde group Electric Phoenix, and briefly joined the New London Consort.  He then persuaded the Arts Council to fund the first ever vocal synthesizer, a terrifying machine constructed by Ian Macintosh, but then had second thoughts about being his own sound engineer and started a voice & electronics duo with John Whiting (known as Electronic Vocal theatre).

The experience of touring with Henry Brown’s And the word was made flesh, with its semi-pornographic set and props that included a real gun (which a constable from the local police station eventually confiscated) convinced the duo that the road was not for them. After an excursion into backing vocals for Manfred Mann, the Who and Mike Oldfield (among others) and deputising in sundry early music groups, John joined the Hilliard Ensemble in 1984 and stayed there for 17 years.  The Hilliard experience was often exhilarating and sometimes frustrating, as these groups tend to be, but it was an opportunity to work closely with such figures as Arvo Pärt, Manfred Eicher, Jan Garbarek and Peter Erskine. In 1989 he started Red Byrd with his friend the bass Richard Wistreich as a way of exploring other performance possibilities. During this time he completed a PhD at the Open University with Richard Middleton, the fruits of which became his first book Vocal Authority (Cambridge University Press) in 1998. He joined the Music Department at the University of York the same year and from then on Steven Harrold began to take his place for more and more Hilliard concerts. As he became increasingly part-time with the group he was able to accept Manfred Eicher’s offer to make records of his own for ECM . This resulted in the Dowland Project, which has now made two albums (one of which was a Sunday Times record of the year) with two more forthcoming. Red Byrd continues to flourish, with ground-breaking recordings of 12th century music for Hyperion.

At the moment John Potter divides his work into a number of overlapping areas. His teaching at York has included the music of Arvo Pärt and Veljo Tormis as well as 19th century opera and progressive rock, and he runs the MA in Vocal Studies. He also coaches ensembles both in Europe and in the USA, and in alternate years chairs the jury at the Tampere International Choral Festival’s ensemble singing competition in Finland.

For a more formal biography see the Music Department pages.