“J’ai oublié les mots”: Gregory Privat in Basel, 8 April 2024

The day’s last light fades through the stained-glass windows of the Martiniqueskirche in Basel on this summery Monday evening in early spring. Gregory Privat touches the keys, the hammers strike the strings, and arpeggios, octaves, and melodies resound from the open lid of the grand piano (whose polish reflects it shimmering interior) and echo through the church to our insatiable ears. Then he sings, he loops his words into choirs, he touches the keys more and more, and his voices fly up to the frescoes so many have seen in the silence of the church for centuries and centuries: “J’ai oublié les mots; J’ai oublié les mots; J’ai oublié les mots.” (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 8 April 2024)