The Hugh Lane Concert series – John Butcher, Werner Dafeldecker and Roy Carroll

Paul December 3, 2025

Near FM presents episode 37 in The Hugh Lane Concert series with an improvised concert by John Butcher, Werner Dafeldecker, and Roy Carroll. The new trio of John Butcher (Saxophone), Werner Dafeldecker (Double Bass), and Roy Carroll (Electronics) unites three singular voices. In this new formation, the trio combines forensic attention to sound with visceral intensity—fracturing time, form, and material. Their music unfolds as a tapestry of glistening details, unstable structures, and shifting acoustic perspectives. The concert is interspersed with an in depth interview between the musicians and Cliodhna Ryan. We also hear audience reaction. Recorded in the beautiful Abbey Presbyterian Church on Sunday Oct 19th 2025.

Born in Brighton and living in London, John Butcher is a saxophonist whose work ranges through improvisation, his own compositions, multitracked pieces and explorations with feedback, unusual acoustics and non-concert locations. He is well known as a solo performer who attempts to engage with a sense of place. Resonant Spaces, for example, is a collection of performances recorded during a tour of unusual locations in Scotland and the Orkney Islands.

Werner Dafeldecker was born in Vienna in 1964 and studied the double bass which he plays with passion. As a musician, composer and sound artist he takes advantage of the manifold possibilities offered by electro-acoustics. His musical projects are often inspired and deduced by outside influences such as architecture, science, photography and film – partially resulting in the creation of graphical scores for various ensembles and instrumental performers.

Roy Carroll is a musician / composer working with electroacoustic media, which is broadly a set of materials and processes that includes amplification, transducers, synthesis, feedback, audio recordings, software, – auditory and psychoacoustic phenomena even. Feedback, the horror of an instrument hearing itself, is a recurring component of Carroll’s work, creating multi-layered forms that continually renegotiate the transformation of electrical audio signals into disturbed air. Roy is based in Berlin. Photo credit: Paul Loughran

Credits – Concert recorded and mixed by Roy Carroll. Radio series produced and mixed by Paul Loughran, Interview and presentation by Cliodhna Ryan. Production team of Gay Graham, Gabor Zajzon and Jaye Palmer. Made with the support of Coimisiún Na Mean with the Television License fee.

Thanks to Mary Barnecutt and the Sunday at Noon concert series. Thanks to all in the Abbey Presbyterian Church, Parnell Square.

The Sundays at Noon concerts take place in their temporary home of the Abbey Presbyterian Church most Sundays in the year and are free to attend but booking is required, with support from Dublin City Council and the Arts Council of Ireland. For more information visit https://hughlane.ie/whats_on/sundays-at-noon/