On November 21 at the Hudderfield Festival, soprano Donatienne Michel-Dansac and the ensemble United Instruments of Lucilin conducted by David Reiland will perform the world premiere of Mauro Lanza’s The Kampelen Machine for "prepared" voice and 8 instruments. The composer writes that he was inspired by a ‘talking’ machine invented by Wolfgang von Kempelen in the second half of the 18th century, the golden age of automatism and mechanisation.

Since Ludus de Morte Regis for 28 singers and electronics (2013), Lanza writes, "I have developed a growing interest in the 'physical' sound-processing of the human voice. For this specific piece I chose cheap and easy-to-find wind instruments like harmonicas or recorders. The modulation of the two simultaneous sources - the vocal and the instrumental one - played by the same musician had the effect of a subtle amplitude modulation of the two signals, resulting in a very predictable and stable spectrum."

In The Kempelen Machine, Lanza has developed more sophisticated devices. "An array of tubes equipped with accordion reeds is mounted on microphone stands...The singer slowly walks through this array, modulating her voice with the frequencies of the reeds... The resonant cavity of the tube largely amplifies the effects of the modulation… During the performance the singer interacts with the devices always producing new sounds. There is a kind of similarity between human and mechanical sound. The instrumental ensemble freely orchestrates the results of this hybridisation, occasionally trying to 'synthesize' the sound of a human voice and even complete words."

The Kempelen Machine is a joint commission of the United Instruments of Lucilin Ensemble and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.