At the start of Nathalie Joachim’s “Madan Bellegarde” — a short, somber Haitian folksong describing a Haitian woman’s condemnation — the taut voice of an elder Ipheta Fortuma floats out of a hidden speaker. Joachim, standing center stage in a flood of purple light, surrounded by the masked, physically distanced members of the Spektral Quartet, hears Fortuma’s voice and nods, listening. The scene is intimate: the glint of an earring, the repositioning of a sneaker, the contour of a cheek, the hint of a smile in an eye.
As Fortuma’s voice fades, Joachim signals to the ensemble with a breath, and the group embraces the melody left behind: Joachim, first singing the tune herself, then playing it on flute; the quartet, harmonizing it in different registers, adorning it with insistent sustains; the electronics, triggered by Joachim, providing gentle blooms of rhythm and color. The melody of “Madan Bellegarde,” passed from Fortuma to Joachim and her ensemble, becomes the sign of a tender occasion, the mark of varied distances; for its sounds are celebrations of lives overlooked, and its shaking, primary voice — Fortuma’s — is that of Joachim’s own grandmother.