In tribute to Canadian poet and soundsinger, Paul Dutton, the Aurealities Ensemble, which takes its name from the title of a 1991 Dutton book of poetry, brings together musicians from Canada and Germany with a rich collective experience spanning musical influences and improvisational cultures from early and new music through jazz and feely improvised music to extended voice and performance art. The instrumentation of violin and cello, trumpet and horn, piano and percussion, with two extraordinary voices affords an interplay of sonic contrasts and correspondences that makes the ensemble sound intimately small and expansive at once.

Matthias Mainz first worked with Dutton in the winter of 2012, when they had the opportunity to play a set of improvisations in Cologne together with French cellist Thomas Charmetant. In the summer of 2013, Dutton and Mainz met again in Toronto and spent about ten days with percussionist Joe Sorbara exploring as a trio, playing a number of concerts, and recording at Grant Avenue Studios in Hamilton. In 2017, when Dutton decided that he would no longer tour abroad, Mainz and Sorbara put together an ensemble that would extend the story further through a series of concerts and recordings in Germany in 2021. They invited cellist Anil Eraslan, violinist Albrecht Maurer, and horn player Samuel Stoll to complete the German side of the ensemble as well as three more Canadian musicians: trumpeter Lina Allemano and soundsingers Christine Duncan and Chris Tonelli, both of whom share a deep connection with Dutton and his work as a vocalist and poet.

New works were commissioned with the help of The Canada Council for the Arts and, with additional help from NKW NRW and Musicfonds in Germany, the eight-piece ensemble was able to gather in Cologne and Berlin in September 2021 for a series of workshops, rehearsals, and concerts, much of which was documented by Mainz through Plattform für Transkulturelle Neue Musik.

In the spring of 2023, the ensemble will reconvene, only slightly transformed, at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in Quebec. Vocalist Laura Swankey, cellist Emily Wittbrodt, and trombonist Tom Richards will play in place of Chris Tonelli, Anil Eraslan, and Samuel Stoll in this iteration while Paul Dutton himself also joins the fray. See you at Victo!