Friday, 24 April


Composer Matthew Welch walks into the room, playing repetitive, minimalistic sounding musical figures on the bagpipes, his music complemented by choreographer Rachel Bernsen's precise movements, tracing geometrical shapes in the air with her limbs.  

Thus, "Singular Simple Present" (aka "Traversing Mad-hatten" sans dancer) served as a short prelude to the main event of the night, the premiere of Welch's Jorge Luis Borges-inspired opera, second in a series of short operas with librettos drawn from the Argentine writer. 

Lasting about thirty minutes, Borges and The Other #2 is an opera for Welch's ensemble Blarvuster and two male voices, Older Borges and Younger Borges, the two being the same man, meeting each other on a riverside bench.

The opening is upbeat and jig-like, abruptly halting before the beginning of Scene 1, in which the younger and older Borges confront each other, the older proving his reality to the younger.  The music is fluid, mysterious, the flute commenting with short melodies periodically over the current of sound coming from the rest of the ensemble (viola, vibraphone, electric guitars, bass guitar, drums).  There is a brief pause, in which the sound floats in the air, and then the music resumes as the voices join.  Particularly nice was the pulsating bed of reverberation resulting from the vibraphone and electronic guitar tones' sympathetic vibrations inside the open piano,  through which the instruments moved in gentle, continuous motion.  The upbeat jig returns at the end of this scene, and at the end of each of the scenes, jerking the listener out of the fantasy of Borges and into a visceral reality.

Like a strong light coming through a dark glass, the music of Scene 2 was somber but motion-heavy, the constancy of the sound rendering the music somewhat hypnotizing, while Borges' older and younger selves reminisce/foretell. 

Scene 3 is upbeat again, with a minor feel, and impressive swells in volume come from the ensemble before each entrance of the voices.  Here, at the end of the piece, the older Borges suggests "we meet again tomorrow, on this same bench that exists in two times and two places."