As We Breathe

Commissioned by Long Beach Opera
Project: 2020 Songbook
Premiered online at the Long Beach Opera 2020 UnGala, Nov. 15, 2020

An installed song by Theresa Wong
Baritone: David Castillo
Koto: Theresa Wong
Text by: Mercedes Roffé from Floating Lanterns (2009, excerpt)
Additional Text by: Theresa Wong
Translation from Spanish by: Anna Deeny Morales
Audio and video recording: David Castillo and Theresa Wong
Audio and video editing, mix and visual installation: Theresa Wong

(click on image to enlarge)

As We Breathe was composed as I experienced California’s worst wildfire season to date in modern history. Struggling to feel well enough to work due to poor air quality, I decided to focus on the breath and breathing as the kernel to this song, simply as a means to cope – physically, emotionally and creatively. I quickly realized the breath was the common struggle too between victims of COVID-19 and so many African American lives (including that of George Floyd, whose image is depicted in the piece) lost this year and years past due to racism and police brutality. The song is an elegy dedicated to those whose lives and dreams have been cut short in this traumatic year, as well as a call to those of us still living to re-dream what might be possible for a better future.

The piece is one of the first realizations of a form I call an installed song, in which a song form encompasses not just music but sculpture, space, movement, and film. I envision a space filled with several of these pieces where you could walk through and experience a whole concert of songs not just as musical forms, but physical ones as well. Due to the pandemic lock-down, this rendition of course premiered as an online experience. Singer David Castillo initially filmed himself singing each part. I then took the footage and created a video collage combining all the voices and adding other visual elements (including the harvest moon, which I filmed on October 1st, glowing an ominous orange from smoke in the atmosphere). This video collage was then projected onto a paper sculpture and filmed again. What you see in the final piece above is the result of the sculpture’s movement manipulating the projected image in physical space. The result is not one of digital processing, but the intervention of air itself.

The song is centered on A=432 Hz (rather than the more common 440 Hz or 442 Hz) and is written in just intonation. The harmonic and melodic structures are derived using Harry Partch’s 11-limit tonality diamond. Using alternative tuning systems is an act of opening the door to biodiversity and variety in a larger musical landscape, which has conformed for centuries in many musical genres to equal temperament. The metaphorical and literal act of ‘tuning oneself’ and ‘finding new meanings of harmony’ in our current global situation begins for me through the act of composition.

Text by Mercedes Roffé, from Floating Lanterns:
The kernel dreams it is already
a gold spike of corn
and the boy dreams he is a man
evil dreams it passes unnoticed
and goodness that it plays a hand and wins
The dew dreams it is already a deep sea
and the golden seed that it is a brooch and armlet
The root dreams it is a branch, that a bird makes its nest in it
and the cloud that it is already rain and seeping the fresh
asperity of grass

Additional text by Theresa Wong:
I breathe (the air)
you breathe
she breathes (the air)
he breathes
it breathes (the air)
they breathe
we breathe

Dedicated to those who have lost their lives in 2020 due to Covid-19, police brutality and wildfires.
Special thanks to Long Beach Opera, Allan Dinkoff, Roseanna DeMaria, George Lewis, Annie Gosfield and David Castillo.