Fred Burdey is a mirrorball. After a wrong start with the violin, he became passionate with piano, but suddenly so fascinated by voice that he lived for several years singing as a classical tenor, after obtaining a master in the Amsterdam Conservatorium. But he’s also a painter (studied at a Fine Arts school), a portrayer, and at the same time… a bio-informatician. Doesn’t he have a master in biology? Since childhood, he’s been oscillating between art and science, now he’s also balancing between classical music and electro-pop.
Playing the microphone, synth’s and beatbox to go with his new voice, here he is conquering a freedom that classical music didn’t allow. Seduced by the creative power of mixing, he goes from a lyrical piano/voice to an electronic dance music arrangement for the same song. Fred and the ambivalence.
It’s been in him forever: art and science, music and painting, scripting in bioinformatics and programming sounds in electronic music… at all times, Fred wants one thing and the other.
That’s how the opera-tenor-to-be became, as a teenager, a fan of Gainsbourg and of the “cold, detached atmosphere” of the Pet Shop Boys, this gay duet that has lasted for more than 30 years and is still inspiring him. This shy boy likes to be on stage, this melancholic boy likes to be alone but is in a relationship, and knows how to have fun. “Yes”, he says, “my life is a perpetual oscillation - and it will go on like this”.