Pneuma – is a work for three wind players and harmonium, distributed throughout the performance space. The wind players move through the room, while the harmonium remains rooted at its center. The piece begins with breath.
Pneuma—Greek for breath, wind, or spirit—is both the material from which the piece grows and the spirit that moves through it. Breath becomes sound; sound becomes air, resonance, and noise. It gathers, drifts, thickens, thins, and disappears. Between these sounds, silence becomes another kind of presence.
“I imagine Pneuma as a beautiful white-noise machine: an immersive field of breath, air, harmonic resonance, and noise that surrounds and bathes the listener. At first, the sounds may seem formless, but gradually something begins to emerge. Harmonic relationships reveal themselves. Unexpected moments of consonance appear like flashes of light, as though something luminous is slowly being uncovered. The piece moves between density and stillness, sound and space. Silence becomes another form of breath—a space for anticipation, release, and reflection. At its heart, Pneuma is an exploration of presence, breath, and love. I think of the presence at the center of the work as something that cannot be possessed or contained—something that moves freely through the room, touching everything without asking anything in return. There is something hopeful to me in the possibility that love does not have to be earned—that it can be given without condition. Perhaps that is what breath knows: it does not ask who we are before entering the room. For a while, we simply breathe together.”
Players:
Joelle Simone Morales – bassoon
Jess Griggs – trombone
Josh Ronsen – clarinet
Andrew Stoltz – harmonium
Composer: Brent Fariss
Brent Fariss is a composer / performer living in Austin, Texas. He has collaborated in several modern music settings including the Gates Ensemble, Waco Girls, and the Austin New Music Coop. He has become increasingly interested in the idea of conceptualism; using minimalist techniques to unite texture, form, resonance, and abstracted programmatic ideas to create a musical environment.
https://brentfariss.bandcamp.com/
This piece will open up the evening in the Learning Gallery at KMFA
6:30pm on Saturday, 10/10/2026
The Sarah Hennies & Tristan Kasten-Krause performance will follow in the Draylen Mason Music Studio at 7:30 PM.
Save your seat here via Ticketleap
Cash and Venmo also accepted on site.