Melvyn Poore / Tracie Morris / Elliott Sharp

Another unexpected turn from American guitarist Elliott Sharp, the two-CD Filiseti Mekidesi is a live recording of an opera dealing with migration, for which Sharp wrote the music and libretto. Titled with the words that mean shelter and migration in Amharic, Filiseti Mekidesi is particularly relevant due to the intensified population displacement during the past two centuries. Because the 18-track narrative isn’t linear however the texts in various languages written by Tracie Morris and Edwin Torres are non-specific, relying on inference not instances. Sung by the six-person Voxnova Italia as well as soprano Kamilya Jubran, vocals share space and significance with the Köln-based, 15-member Ensemble Musicfabrik. Included are a set of pre-recorded sonic gestures which are integrated into the concert as cues or leitmotifs

With the polyphonic and polyrhythmic narratives unrolling that way, the resonating shakes and harsh shatters from drums and bells, precise pizzicato or spiccato string variables and interludes or counterpoint between the brass and woodwinds, express the composition’s mood as much as the verbal phrases. The sophisticated, often blended tessitura of the singers is such that virtuosic rondo harmonies or expressive emotionalism often from the sopranos or mezzos, are as crucial to the program as brief sequences of echoing xylophone patterning or oboe cries. While words dealing with fleeing disruptive peaceful situations and alienating sea journeys can sometimes be heard sung in accented English, the key message of the first part of the program is summed up succinctly but powerfully by basso Nicholas Isherwood. A bit muffled among the babble of voices is that government prescriptions for refugees to fend for themselves “among the sea and sky” resulting in the fear that they “must stay away” or “they will beat us and kill us”.

Again without particular references that theme is further elaborated instrumentally and made more obvious vocally on CD2. Foretold by a throbbing percussion and a steadily accelerating high-pitched horn interlude on the second track, kettle drum ruffs speak to the title of “Time to Go” on the third. Backed by delicate pizzicato strings and a flute-clarinet duo as counterpoint, the conversational voices harmonize and impel the narrative to the next few tracks further elaborating the forced sea journey and white flag waving of some migrants, culminating in a spindly and melancholy violin-cello duet. Biting soprano voices intensify the sense of loss on “The Thing You Want” with the verbalized corollary of “I will never find you”. Electrical drones which have been lurking barely-heard in the background throughout the opera’s previous sequences become more pronounced as first an orchestral crescendo and then Kamilya Jubran’s lyric soprano personify the motif of loss. Harmonized into a near- ecclesiastical choir on “Filiseti Music V” and the concluding “Endless Migration”, the singers alternate with orchestral tremors to personify the sadness resulting from the thwarted concept of “return”. Split tone reeds and bell-tree ringing soften in increments as the piece concludes.

Filiseti Mekidesi is yet another demonstration of Sharp’s musical versatility. But whether the hidebound operatic world will want this program, which was premiered at Bochum’s Ruhrtriennale, to be performed elsewhere is an open question.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Cosmic Gifts 2. Humans Move 3. Enter: Return 4. Into the Enter 5. Filiseti Music I 6. Under the Thicket 7. Plutonus 8. They Killed Us So We Had To Go 9. In Liquid State 10. Tempest 11. Filiseti Music II 12. Time to Go 13. Filiseti Music III 15. Filiseti Music IV 16. The Thing You Want 17. Enter Return 18. Filiseti Music V 19. Endless Migration

Personnel: Ensemble Musikfabrik: Matthew Conley (trumpet); Bruce Collings (trombone); Christine Chapman (French horn); Melvyn Poore (tuba); Carl Rosman (clarinet); Peter Veale (oboe); Helen Bledsoe (flute); Hannah Weirich (violin); Axel Porath (viola); Dirk Wietheger (cello); Florentin Ginot (bass); Ulrich Löffler, Benjamin Kobler (keyboards); Rie Watanabe, Michael Weilacher (percussion. drums); Kamilya Jubran (soprano); Voxnova Italia: Susanna Rigacci (soprano); Monica Benvenuti, Anna Clementi (mezzosoprano); Sandro Naglia (tenor); Oliviero Giorgiutti (baritone); Nicholas Isherwood (bass); Tracie Morris, Edwin Torres (texts); Elliott Sharp (composer, director)