Yesterday evening we went to the Cultural Centre in Mechelen to listen to a Bl!ndman production based around the secret masses of William Byrd. We are great fans of Bl!ndman, with a quartet of saxophones producing softer versions of music originally intended for organs or horns. Mechelen’s Cultural Centre, a converted church, was the perfect location for this latest production of Eric Sleichim, a mixture of those saxophones, polyphony, and more modern elements (including turntables and the voice of a Dutch author, Mayke Nas. We had the privilege of meeting Sleichim afterwards and he enthusiastically explained how the polyphonies of the music produce additional resonances – in effect, additional voices – that were at the origin of the belief in angelic voices. This was indeed heavenly music.
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