breathe

Saturday, March 15, 2025 // 7:30pm 

2640 Space, Baltimore

LORELEI ENSEMBLE
Beth Willer, conductor


Charlotte GrevE
alto saxophone & composer


Wendel Patrick
keyboards/electronics & composer


Ken Thomson
bass clarinet & composer


Jason Treuting
drum set/vibraphone & composer


Andrew Cotton
Sound DesignER

PROGRAM

please hold applause UNTIL THE END, AND ENJOY THE silence between sections


[INHALE]

expression / GREVE
with every breath / TREUTING
Improvisation / PATRICK
Take Our Breath Away / TREUTING

Sonja Tengblad, soprano


[HOLD]

accordion / GREVE
airtone / THOMSON
sputter / THOMSON
counting chorale / TREUTING
submerged / PATRICK
breath / PATRICK

[EXHALE]

gone / THOMSON
I sigh / PATRICK

Kathryn Cruz, soprano

Improvisation / PATRICK
I You We / TREUTING
release / GREVE
reprise / GREVE

ARTISTS

ABOUT LORELEI

The GRAMMY-nominated Lorelei Ensemble is recognized across the globe for its bold and inventive programs that champion the extraordinary flexibility and virtuosity of the human voice. Led by founder and artistic director Beth Willer, Lorelei has established an inspiring mission, curating culturally-relevant and artistically audacious programs that stretch and challenge the expectations of artists and audiences alike.

The BREATHE program is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts; the Dean’s Excellence Accelerator Awards (DXA) of The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University; the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation; The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc.; The Amphion Foundation, Inc.; the Lorna Cooke deVaron Grant, an Alfred Nash Patterson Grant from Choral Arts New England; the Maryland State Arts Council and the William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund, creator of the Baker Artist Portfolios, www.BakerArtist.org.

SELECTED TEXTS

  • When you fall into the edge
    When you cannot hide
    When you’re feeling restless inside of your mind
    When you’re taking in all the air
    When you can’t see the end of the storm
    When all you see is more and more

    Then you fall into the edge
    Then you cannot hide
    Then you’re feeling restless inside of your mind
    Then you’re taking in all the air
    Then you can’t see the end of the storm
    Then all you see is always more

    And you fall into the edge
    Where you cannot hide
    When you’re feeling restless inside of your mind
    And you’re taking in all the air
    And you can’t see the end of the storm
    And all you see is more and more

  • Turning inward and longing
    Tell me the laws and possibilities of my breath
    To understand
    The source of speech
    The source of each note
    Why we are still holding
    The source of each word and line
    The wind in my lungs
    Holding our breath
    Still holding our breath 

    Tell me the laws of my breath
    Source of my speech
    Source of each note
    Source of each word

    Show me the force of my breath
    Wind in my lungs

    While you fall into the edge where you cannot hide
    Oh what a force it is

    Still you’re swallowing all the air
    Maybe there’s no end to the 
    When all you feel is only

    Then you fall into the edge
    Then you cannot hide
    Then you’re feeling restless inside of you mind

    Then you’re taking in all the air
    Then you can’t see the end of the storm
    Then all you see is always

  • Initially the body responds to lowered blood oxygen by redirecting blood to the brain and increasing cerebral blood flow. Blood flow may increase up to twice the normal flow but no more. 

    If blood flow cannot be increased or if doubled blood flow does not correct the problem, symptoms of cerebral hypoxia will begin to appear. Mild symptoms include difficulties with complex learning tasks and reductions in short-term memory.

    If oxygen deprivation continues, cognitive disturbances, and decreased motor control will result. The skin may also appear bluish and heart rate increases. Continued oxygen deprivation results in fainting, long-term loss of consciousness, coma, seizures, cessation of brain stem reflexes, and brain death.

  • I remember it like it was yesterday. I was three years old, and it was the day before my family moved from Washington D.C. to South America. My sister and I went with her friend Marta to the neighborhood pool. I’d never been to a pool before, I didn’t know how to swim, I’m not even sure I knew what a swimming pool was, but I didn’t think that was important. So I remember we jumped into the kiddie pool, and we were having fun running back and forth, and then, at some point, Marta who was a couple of years older decided that we should get out of the kiddie pool and go to the big pool. So I remember we got out, and Marta ran towards the big pool and jumped in...and then my sister followed her and jumped in behind her, and then I followed my sister and jumped in.

    I remember hearing the sound as I hit the water,and all of a sudden everything got really muffled. Everything around me was blue. The pool was painted blue, the sky was blue, it was so beautiful. I wasn’t scared, but this was so different from anything I’d ever experienced.

    Then I tried to take a breath. I remember feeling surprise and discomfort. I felt like my lungs were filling up with water. I didn’t understand what was happening and kept trying to breathe, but it wasn’t working. I still wasn’t scared...I was mostly just confused. But I was losing consciousness. The next thing I remember, I was laying on the side of the pool, coughing, spitting up water, a lot of faces looking down at me...and I remember someone asking me, “are you okay? You almost drowned.” That day was the first time I recognized my relationship to air and breathing and not being able to catch my breath, and I never forgot that. I remember it like it was yesterday.

  • Breath, you invisible poem
    Pure exchange, sister silence
    Being and its counter balance
    Rhythm where I became,
    Ocean I accumulate by stealth, By the same slow wave;
    Thriftiest of seas
    Thief of the whole cosmos!
    What estates 
    What vast spaces
    Have already poured through my lungs?
    Four winds are like daughters to me.
    So do you know me,
    Air, that once sailed through me?
    You that were once the leaf and rind of my every word?

  • Fall into life.
    Breathe it in.
    Exhale Out.
    Then it’s gone.

  • I sigh and think of you 
    when a breeze tickles a field of daisies
    and I inhale their sweet scent
    I sigh and think of you
    humming me to sleep,
    your gentle breath
    carrying the tender melodies
    from your heart to mine
    I sigh and think of you
    When I laugh with delight
    The same effervescent, arpeggiated laughter you gave me
    I sigh and think of you and sigh

  • With ev’ry breath I break
    With ev-ry breath I cry
    With ev’ry breath I die
    With ev’ry breath I feel
    With ev’ry breath I give
    With ev’ry breath I hear
    With ev’ry breath I joke
    With ev’ry breath I keep
    With ev’ry breath I laugh
    With ev’ry breath you love
    With ev’ry breath you move
    With ev’ry breath you near
    With ev’ry breath you prove
    With ev’ry breath you quash
    With ev’ry breath you risk
    With ev’ry breath scare
    With ev’ry breath we see
    With ev’ry breath we try
    With ev’ry breath we veer 
    With ev’ry breath we wane
    With ev’ry breath we yearn
    With ev’ry breath we

  • Breath is a man’s special qualification as animal. Sound is a dimension he has extended. Language is one of his proudest acts.

  • Will we ever stop falling?
    Find a place to hide
    Will we still feel restless inside of our minds?
    Can we let out all the air?
    Can we feel the end of the 
    Can we stop feeling always more?
    Let the air out, keep falling
    Need no place to hide
    Catching our breath
    Right inside of your mind
    Taking in only my own air
    ‘Til I can see an end of the storm
    That’s all I feel and nothing more