Scrapbook

From Russia with Love

Posted on December 1 2000.

The group visited Moscow just as the Soviet Union began to crumble, helped, no doubt, by Zan and Bill's demonstration of the insidious corrupting influence of decadent western-style advertising....

Greenleaves is my delight

Posted on December 1 2000.

When on tour in Yemen we were honoured by being invited to meet traditional musicians in a 'mafraj' session. It was a wonderful occasion, and our first [and last] experience of the 'qat' leaf. You tear off the young shoots and store them in your cheek, alowing the juice to slowly work its magic. Very mellow indeed!

Plague? What Plague?

Posted on December 1 2000.

This was taken in Bombay whilst on tour. Appropriately enough for a medieval band, the plague was in town at the same time. But we spunky Brits never let a few bubos spoil our fun, so we carried on regardless!

Polished Performance

Posted on December 1 2000.

Amongst the more memorable tours the group has done in recent years, one in particular left a lasting impression. The trip was generously sponsored by the British Council, who like their artists to file a report on how things went. To give some idea of the remarkable nature of our 1996 visit to Poland we offer an extract from our report to the British Council on that occasion.....

London - September 1996

The Dufay Collective were pleased to have the opportunity to perform again for a Polish audience. The concert was enthusiastically received and very well attended.

We were surprised, however, on arriving at the airport to discover that the people sent to meet us had been expecting us 6 hours earlier, despite the fact that the flight was on time and it was the Festival who had booked the tickets. This meant that we coincided with the arrival of another group and that therefore the four comfortable seats available in the vehicle intended to transport the six members of our group (as well as our guide) would now need to carry ELEVEN people. In addition it seems that they had not expected us to bring so many instruments. The confusion caused by this lack of communication within the festival organisation was so great that it was an hour and a half until our guide was able to make the decision to hire a couple of taxis to augment the transportation provided. This must have been an expensive mistake (especially since the three hour journey we were expecting turned out to be four and a half hours even at break-neck speeds on midnight roads).....

Stopping for petrol on the long journey, our guide seemed unwilling to buy any food for us on the grounds that we would be fed on arrival at the Benedictine Abbey where we were to stay. Unfortunately this turned out to be another mistake and so at about 3.30am we retired to our 'cells' hungry and exhausted. The cells themselves seemed in some respects inadequate to the needs of those unused to a life of religious denial. I found my bed to be rather cold and damp and I think that on balance Giles would have preferred to have had a pillow. I think it fair to say that we would all have welcomed the unashamed luxury of hot running water, in the absence of which hot stationary water would no doubt have sufficed. Unfortunately neither of these seemed readily available in my cell (nor, I suspect, the others).

From what I could tell of the meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner), bread and water appeared to be the staple diet in this establishment. However, I suspect that by good fortune we had arrived on a special Feast Day since small quantities of cheese with a surprisingly subtle but not altogether noticeable flavour were provided at all the meals that day. In addition to this at one of the meals some dead things which had been thoroughly boiled were produced, and at another I thought I saw some pieces of a tomato. As if to confirm my suspicions, shortly after breakfast the local bishop held a six hour service of thanksgiving on the front lawn and I felt sure that one of the more joyful Polish hymns played on the Casio keyboard was in some way related to the tomato I had seen.

Unencumbered by any sort of MOT, a small 25 year old Lada proved entirely capable of transporting seven of us to the concert and back at speeds considerably in excess of 100 miles an hour. This seemed more than considerate on the driver's part since we were not in fact running late. After the concert it became clear that arrangements had been made for us to continue to entertain the locals with jolly traditional British drinking songs. We tried to explain that in Britain such songs are traditionally accompanied by jolly traditional British drinks, but it seemed that beer was not allowed at this occasion and so we were offered some dry bread and an apple. The general jollity of the occasion was enhanced by the highly attractive historical costumes which a number of those present were wearing.

The following morning, rather than getting us to the airport in good time for a comfortable check in, the organisers had arranged to get their money's worth by getting us to give a seminar immediately after breakfast. With no available hints as to what was expected I found myself giving a spontaneous hour long lecture covering various aspects of medieval music and exploring the relationship between heterophonic melodic ornamentation and the mathematics of fractal geometry, after which Vivien taught them a song.

Luckily Bill had had to leave at 5 o'clock that morning and so there were only 5 of us to share the four comfortable seats on the long drive back to the airport. This was facilitated by Vivien, our guest singer, and myself taking it in turns to travel on the floor of the car which delivered us just in time for our flight and without any apparent loss of life.

In all, a highly memorable tour.

Peter Skuce

The Dufay Collective

Gentlemen Musicians of Versaille

Posted on December 1 2000.

In August 2000 Giles, Paul and Peter & 'starred' in the Orgy Scene of a new Hollywood film "The Affair of the Necklace". Here we see Monsieur Le Vin, one of the gentlemen musicians of Versaille preparing for a tough night's 'orging'.

The Boys and Their Mom

Posted on December 1 2000.

Back in February 1999 Paul, Bill and Peter unearthed a fascinating old portrait from the Wild West when in San Diego. It appears to depict a couple of young cow-pokes and their much loved mom.