Leanna Keith’s work fans out like a constellation; through flute and taiko performance, education, and composition, their myriad projects and collaborations are anchored by questions of identity, relationships, and sonic experimentation. The latest addition to Keith’s explorations is the album body of breath, released by Strange Moon Records at the end of September.
Both an earnest invitation and a meditation, body of breath adds several engaging entries to the bass flute repertoire with pieces by composer-collaborators Nebal Maysaud, Josh Hou, Heather Bentley, Kaley Lane Eaton, and Kevin Baldwin. Keith’s performance across the project, which is bookended by self-composed pieces, demonstrates a sensitivity to the physical, individual body, the body politic, and how breath allows us to permeate and transcend these partitions.
The opening tracks Home and Al Wahdat Al Wujud dial us in as Keith mellowly clacks on the keys and flips between partials. Soon after, the texture thickens, alternating between sputtering breaths and melismatic hums. Hou’s playful, singsongy melodies in Stories of My Grandfather remind me of my own grandparents, and how storytelling often accompanies a stroll, some time in the garden, or other handiwork tasks.
Become Dragon and GEO both involve other media which Keith responds to and plays with, and the back and forth of flute, viola, and machine-like sounds nod to the presence of multiple bodies. Meanwhile, the thin, near silences and pithy delays in body, and… and… and body of breath gesture toward the environment – the breath within and the breath around.
Reflecting on this album release, we asked Leanna about their collaborations and drawing inspiration from fantasy, place, and memory.
First off, congratulations on this beautifully varied and cohesive album. Could you tell us about your motivations for the project, and what energized you and your collaborators throughout the process?
Thank you so much! body of breath was a concept that I first devised in 2019, with the intention of recording in 2020. What I proposed to the Jack Straw Cultural Center, where I would eventually record the album through their Artist Residency Program, was an album of works for solo bass flute which were composed for me to perform. We were jazzed about the project – but Covid seriously derailed it. After all, the instrument is mostly breath, and breath became dangerous. I wasn’t able to actually get in the recording studio until 2022.
To be honest, in those two years, keeping energized was hard. We were all impacted so heavily – in my personal life, my husband (who was my fiancé at the time) had been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. We spent six months fully immersed in chemo treatments and trying desperately hard not to catch Covid as his immune system was so compromised that the virus could be nearly impossible to fight. It was a lockdown on top of a lockdown – brutally sanitized and insular.
Having something to look forward to was vital. The album was something to look forward to. I needed breath, needed it to process my emotions, needed it to no longer be dangerous. When we finally emerged, my husband declared in remission, I was finally able to breathe (both literally and metaphorically) into this project again.
I am profoundly lucky that much like myself, once we re-emerged into the world my collaborators were delighted and excited to bring these pieces to life. Some of them had been written pre-2020, but most happened in the midst of the height of the pandemic. My friends, like the rest of the world, also needed something to look forward to – and knowing that these pieces would be performed eventually, recorded eventually – was a source of hope.
Breath is obviously a unifying and grounding force in this album. In addition to creating the music, were there specific breath exercises or other physical practices that you adopted?
Breath training is a lot of flute playing in general, and bass flute more than most. Additionally, the composers (including myself) all chose to highlight the physicality of the breath throughout their compositions – so playing this album really did feel a great deal like training for a marathon.
There is a moment in GEO by Eaton where my gasping has to be violently audible, and in between each, holding a note as steady and as loud as possible for as long as possible. I felt that I had to breathe in through my feet, let my lungs reach the floor in order to not hyperventilate.
On the flip side, body…and…and… by Baldwin asks that in between these incredibly quiet micro-sounds that I make my breaths entirely inaudible. When the mic is that close and that sensitive, you can hear when my tongue adjusts itself inside my mouth – and yet I have to breathe without being heard. It felt like meditation. I had to conjure a stillness in which the air itself moved silently, for my lungs to be replenished without disturbing the atmosphere or even contracting a muscle. I adore the physicality of it all.
While I didn’t pick up any additional training devises to work on my lungs, I do think endurance was key. Luckily, I think I’ve built up decent stamina from my regular athletic endeavors – taiko drumming and vertical aerial arts. If I can spend ten minutes drumming at full tilt screaming my head off, or four minutes holding my own body weight in the air, I can get through these pieces.
Leanna Keith — Photo by David Wall
There’s a simultaneous playfulness and gravity to your work, from themes of myth, imagination, and fate in your 2021 album TAROT to your interest in fantasy and video games. Is there a particular archetype or character that you draw from or identify with?
Playfulness and gravity makes me feel deeply seen, so thank you. According to my mother, I was born in the year of the Monkey, in the month of the Golden Monkey, and on the day of the Monkey King. In other words, I’ve had this trickster-god character chase me my entire life. I grew up watching the Chinese cartoon of him, and reading his stories. In some ways, he is both whimsical and impulsive, quick to be merciless and brutal, followed by being selfless and silly.
While I loved the stories, for a long time I struggled with being associated with such a chaotic character. After all, I want to be a good person – and the Monkey King is probably best known for pissing on the hand of Buddha. As I grew up, I realized that the tricksters like the Monkey King are a symbol of rebellion and change, fighting for community, a push against the status-quo, a queering of the norm. I dream of creating a work about my relationship to this character, so perhaps that’s the next big project down the line.
I would be remiss though if I didn’t mention The Hanged Man from the tarot. If you’re very keen, you’ll notice on my 2021 album that The Hanged Man is the only track that I decided to feature myself in the music video. Looking at the card – he’s suspended from a tree by one foot, perfectly serene, looking at the world from a vantage point most will never see. I think that kind of way of looking at the world perfectly aligns with how I try to live my life and make my art. It might look a little silly, maybe even detrimental, but it creates the opportunity for new beginnings.
You’re based in Seattle, a city with such a rich musical and social history, not to mention gorgeous nature. What do you love about Seattle, and how has your relationship to the city informed your work?
“body of breath” would not exist had I not moved to Seattle. The improvisational and experimental scene here is positively tremendous; filled with outstanding musicianship and deep kindness. Beyond the specific composers who wrote for this album whom I met in Seattle (which is all but one and myself), the way that I approached these pieces are a direct result of having played within this particular improvisatory scene.
There is a joy in crafting a moment, a settling into the roots without hurry or a need to continuously bring out something new that informs every single piece on the tracklist. These are all mirrors of what I see on the stage with my wonderful colleagues. Deep listening (thank you, Pauline Oliveros) is very much a part of the consciousness of what we do.
Additionally, before I had moved to Seattle I was fresh out of undergrad, and very much unsure of myself as a composer. I knew that I had the drive for it, but very minimal training and a lack of confidence. After graduate school, I found collaborators who encouraged me to write not only for others but also for myself – giving me the space to play and explore with my own voice. I gained so much confidence through the sheer generosity of the musicians who call Seattle home.
Excavations of identity, history, and memory can be both joyful and devastating. What sparks hope for you lately, and what’s next for you?
It is truly bizarre to be writing this response on November 8th, 2024. In a time where hope is one of my primary drivers, I keep falling upon the idea that the joy of play: childish, simple, exploration, is deeply optimistic. That humans can spend their days creating, making art, alchemizing sound waves into collections of time, is hope distilled. Author/activist Naomi Klein really nailed it for me with the statement: “imagination is an act of rebellion” – so much so, that I wrote a piece about it in 2019.
I just want to play. To sing, to dance, to make silly shapes in the sand and in the airwaves. In doing so, I choose to reclaim my identity, my history, my memory, my joy and my devastation – and I ritualize it into a present and a future worth fighting for. I hope you’ll choose to play, too.
I CARE IF YOU LISTEN is an editorially-independent program of the American Composers Forum, and is made possible thanks to generous donor and institutional support. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author and may not represent the views of ICIYL or ACF.
You can support the work of ICIYL with a tax-deductible gift to ACF. For more on ACF, visit composersforum.org.