Composer and violinist Rupert Guenther celebrates cosmology at WA Museum Boola Bardip

With starry landscapes overhead and electronica underfoot, violinist and composer Rupert Guenther performed a beguiling one-man cosmology concert at the WA Museum Boola Bardip on Thursday — the first of four themed nights he is planning at Hackett Hall this year.

Piggybacking on the Perth Festival theme of Djinda (Stars), Guenther’s skillful use of looping technology and astrological imagery created an Ed Sheeran-meets-Brian Cox vibe, with sinuous interweavings of melodic lines and harmonies to create a meditative feel convey amazement.

The one from Dr. Imagery curated by John Goldsmith ranged from full-color galactic vortices to rugged starscapes at dusk and dawn, which weaved through the music and narration of Guenther during a nearly two-hour presentation.

A low elemental chord opened the track under a dash of Bungle Bungle Below the Milky Way, while Guenther layered a gentle treble line from his semi-acoustic Paul Davies fiddle.

The tale conjured up the vastness of time and space as a wail rang out, morphing into a spinning galaxy with outer spiral arms flapping, then morphing into a rocky seashore at night.

A drone-on-loop developed a mesmerizing atmosphere under a haunting melody enhanced by a swirl of time-lapse starlight.

A reset introduced a feverish pizzicato passage, giving way to a dance beat looped and punctuated by erratic percussive hits on the violin’s neck, layered with a soulful melody, as a primeval vision of trees, stars and the crimson light of a solar eclipse Make way: source of fear and wonder for early human societies.

Guenther’s commentary reflected 4½ billion years of terrestrial time, a synthesis of science, sound and vistas of earth and sky that evoke the transience of life as we know it.

The Gene Roddenberry-esque performance conjured up a more haunting violin in gently dramatic phrases beneath a brooding skyscape, a comet against a million points of light, time-lapse stars above the Pinnacles – a disc of dizzying, discontinuous rays – darting to nebulae deep in space.

Harmonies reflected an otherworldly existence as the screen settled on a rural scene of time-lapse stars – frosting and an endless blue horizon – and then a sunrise as the loop continued.

Inspiring reflection on curiosity and knowledge, the beginnings of mankind stretched back to ancient Iraq and Turkey.

Guenther reversed the soundscape and repeated a surging theme, then layered on a drone as a gaunt figure descended in an endless landscape and returned to the Pinnacles.

Another reset brought guitar-like pizzicato, warbling on a loop as the screen returned to Bungle Bungle, and a string violin rose, sustained and sonorous beneath another galactic whirl, slowly spinning and then giving a miasmic kaleidoscope of celestial bodies and skyscapes as metronomic music space measured time in infinitesimal moments; each builds on the last in consecutive syllables.

Next, Guenther selected an electronic skull and crossbones violin by Bulgaria-based Jeff Stratton, which intones a mystery in pulsating pizzicato with overtones overlaying the beat; pentatonic tones adding a sense of the other, recorded in plaintive and poignant slurred phrases.

Jupiter and Saturn circled the screen while countless ages hung in the air.

“Again the question, what is it like when we look at the stars, what does it feel like? What is special about it?” asked Günther.

Stars themselves reflect the span of time, their distant light reminiscent of their origins untold in history, he added.

A resonant, reverberating fiddle explored the heights of the hall with its historic treasures in sacred galleries, a simple etude weaving through a mnemonic of scales and intervals, plumbing down with a low, booming fifth C string.

Another reset featured an annoying pizzicato rhythm looping over col legno percussion and a shrill arching melody that softened in reprise and then soared to high harmonies before falling to earth like a SpaceX rocket.

Eventually, the switch to a stripped-down 1938 Rickenbacker Electric Fiddle, warbling lute-like pizzicato and mandolin-like melody produced a folkloric romp, balladesque and playful; Looping percussive beats down the violin’s neck to usher in another lament, soulful yet upbeat.

A farewell reflection compared humanity to stars; each an important part of a complex picture, each a part of the main body.

Finally, with the same rhythmically hopeful lament, Guenther unleashed his full lyrical range like a yoga master sending a class home with a joke; Discipline yielding to release its reward.

Rupert Guenther’s future exhibitions at the WA Museum are on Sunday 7 May from 2pm to 4pm on Ancient Messengers (rock art); on Sunday, July 23, 2-4 p.m., topic by arrangement; and Thursday, November 9, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., on Journeys (Migration).