“Palpable breathing” was written specially for Christopher Adler, whose dedication to performance and creation of new music is remarkable.
This piece is not my first experience writing for non-western instruments, and my current interest in writing for traditional instruments is in finding a fusion between an idiomatic writing and the use of “extended” techniques, practiced in contemporary music.
In this piece both of this approaches (idiomatic and contemporary) highlight the nature of the instrument – a mouth organ made of bamboo tubes with finger wholes, which only sound when the finger holes are covered (“touched”). A variety of tremolos can be produced by breathing or tonguing in different ways.
Thus, it was my attempt to “touch” a breath, to sense it and… to release it into an open air in a form of a gradually unfolding sound.

“Palpable breathing” was written specially for Christopher Adler, whose dedication to performance and creation of new music is remarkable.
This piece is not my first experience writing for