Q+A with Matthew Welch

1. Can you briefly describe how you first were exposed/inspired bynon western music?I felt lured mysteriously by the quirky international subculture of highland bagpipe purists as a kid and fell heavily into the center of its scene. I first encountered Gamelan in undergrad, then polishing my bagpipe skills and beginning studies in composition. I felt a connection with it immediately in terms of structure and sonic qualities. Both musics have thriving North American communities, so one could literally stumble into this.2. What qualities attract you to have personal experiences with nonwestern music/musicians? What do you find meaningful in thisexchange and why?The sound of the instruments were so thrilling, there was no stopping the urge for hands on experience. The oral approach to learning really made lasting impacts in my studies and created an inner dialogue on issues of literacy and the nature of sound and ritual. The possibility to make a social and cross-cultural connection through an advanced practice displays nicely the different ways music can collect people.3. In what ways have these experiences changed or affected yourcreative process, in composition and performance?Basically everything I had brought to the table had been changed by the addition of this new perspective. In my thoughts, idioms started to superimpose transparently, and both writing and playing was better informed by mutual inter-instrumental insights. My obsession as a composer now seems more akin to making a three-way translation dictionary between these two world musics, with a western experimental vernacular.