breathe
Saturday, March 15, 2025 // 7:30pm
2640 Space, Baltimore
Saturday, March 15, 2025 // 7:30pm
2640 Space, Baltimore
expression / GREVE
with every breath / TREUTING
Improvisation / PATRICK
Take Our Breath Away / TREUTING
accordion / GREVE
airtone / THOMSON
sputter / THOMSON
counting chorale / TREUTING
submerged / PATRICK
breath / PATRICK
gone / THOMSON
I sigh / PATRICK
Improvisation / PATRICK
I You We / TREUTING
release / GREVE
reprise / GREVE
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.
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