An hour of Music drama for a Pansori Singer and Korean Traditional Orchestra
Commissioned by SEOUL METROPOLITAN TRADITIONAL MUSIC ORCHESTRA
Premiered on 3rd July 2024 at the Sejong Center, M Theater
Text by Yabi Lim, Sori by I Ho Ahn, Conducted by Su Yeoul Choi
The world is filled with breath. In that breath, there is resonance, and we call it music. Thus, the world is the breath of music. You take a handful of the world's breath, holding it, thrown into the life of breathing. Your first exhalation bursts forth, and your first inhalation follows. The breath you've borrowed becomes your words, your song, and it aligns with the breath of others. Your breath roams the world. The total amount of breath you inhale and exhale throughout your life is the same. You cannot hold even a handful. Perhaps your breathing is passive rather than active. You are nothing more than an unburst sac of breath. Your breath is breathed for you. The world exists as much as it is remembered. The total amount of memories you inhale from life and exhale back into it is the same. Memories mix with breath and become the world. Thus, memories are breath. The breath you inhaled yesterday remembers the first cries of existence, a child's babble, hazy sleep talk, a lover's whispers. In the breath you just took in, someone’s sigh and another’s life are embedded, along with the resonance of the daegeum and the trembling of the gayageum. In the breath you are now inhaling, someone's memory is etched, and in the breath you will exhale, your memory will scatter into the world. In this way, the breath of the world remembers music. But the breath you hold was never truly yours. You must return it. Your breath will lose its memory and its words. Do not grieve yet. It is too soon. The world will preserve your breath. It will remember you forever in music. Your breath circulates through the world. The world was the total sum of our breath. The music you exhale resonates with the patterns of the world. Soon, the moon will open. You will cry again, passing through the night's breathing holes. Then, the world will offer you a handful of breath. Cry. Cry with all your might as if you were born anew. Cry out loud.