Music / “Arms of Love”, The Song Company. At Ainslie Arts Centre, September 2. Reviewed by GRAHAM McDONALD.

THE Song Company has embraced a more theatrical presentation of vocal music for this production, adding three instrumentalists, lighting effects and dance to the usual small group of singers. 

This performance interwove Dietrich Buxtehude’s “Membra Jesu nostrti patientis sanctissima” from the 17th century with “I Pray the sea” by Australian composer Chris Williams. 

This tour is premiering this work, with Williams setting the words of Iranian refugee journalist Behrouz Boochani, who spent many years interned in the Manus Island detention centre.

The performance took place on a low, two-level stage in front of a white screen in the fairly bleak main hall of the Ainslie Arts Centre. Variably coloured lights lit the performers from in front and below casting shadows on the white background and the side walls. Dancer Neville Williams Boney used the front and sides of the stage with the singers sometimes using hand-held lights on him for extra effects.

The two quite different pieces of music fitted together well. 

The program begins with three of the seven sections of the Buxtehude in succession and then alternating sections of both before a longer block of the Williams work, then ending with the last section of the Buxtehude. 

The Buxtehude was accompanied by the trio of Antony Pitt on a Rhodes electric piano, Hylton Mowday playing saxophones and Jenny Eriksson with an electric viola da gamba. 

The sound of the Rhodes is somewhere between a portative organ and a harpsichord and blends with the slightly electric edge of the viol and soprano sax taking the part originally scored for violin. The combination of the three blend remarkably well and sound entirely appropriate for the music. The newer work was mostly unaccompanied, with occasional subtle percussion and a few notes from the keyboard.

As we have come to expect from The Song Company, the singing was a delight. Sopranos Amy Moore and Brianna Louwen, mezzo Stephanie Dillon, tenor Robert Macfarlane and bass Thomas Flint worked as a unit with Pitts leading and directing from the keyboard. 

The theatrical side of the performance is a little more problematic. The lighting effects were clunky, but that might have been because of the limitations of what was available or possible in that space. The dancing was distracting rather than adding anything. 

The idea of adding a theatrical element to a musical performance is to be applauded and can be extremely effective, as Musica Viva’s presentation of Schubert’s “Winterreise” showed only a few weeks ago. 

This one needs some more thought and perhaps financial investment in the lighting as well as some extra consideration around the role of the dancer.