commissioned by European Chamber Opera and first performed in the Great Conservatory at Syon House on 28 June 1993; duration: c.41'30"

Anna (soprano) Alison Wells
Mabel (mezzo-soprano) Deborah Miles-Johnson
Karl Rime (countertenor) Andrew Watts
Phil Reezon (tenor) Robin Green
Guard (baritone) Gerard Quinn

Mind Over Matter is a chamber opera for 5 singers, piano duet (with speaking parts) and computer operator. The story is set in the future: the world has been taken over by a giant computer corporation called BABEL, run by a man known simply as "the Boss", and, of course, someone is trying to hack into its central computer system. BABEL's corporate headquarters has 127 floors and yet only two lifts (with characters of their own). There is a Guard who will not venture off the ground floor, two suspicious characters called Rime and Reezon who carry two identical briefcases, a power-crazy executive who falls in love and then loses her mind, and the heroine Anna herself (who first appeared in Anna's Rapid Eye Movement).