for baritone, trumpet, trombone, bass clarinet, and fixed electronics
duration: 4-5 minutes

Loadbang, The Yale Club, New York, NY February 23rd, 2010 7PM

Uncertainty Series, New Haven, CT - February 26th, 2010 8PM
Littlefield, Brooklyn, NY - February 27th, 2010
May 1, 2011, Pittsfield, PA

Purchase from Project Schott New York

How to Breathe Underwater is a portrait of depression. In the same way that composers of the 19th century wrote miniatures based on the figures of the Commedia Dell’arte, How to Breathe Underwater was inspired by a character in the Jonathan Franzen novel, Freedom. While reading the novel, I was struck by the character named Connie Monaghan. The author described her as having “no notion of wholeness—[she] was all depth and no breadth. When she was coloring, she got lost in saturating one or two areas with a felt-tip pen." This kind of singular obsession—the sense of being overwhelmed, and eventually drowned, inspired me to compose this piece. In fact, I initially called the piece “All Depth and No Breadth.” However, I decided that How to Breathe Underwater was a more appropriate title. In the end, I wanted to suggest optimism, not fatalism.

"Another highlight of the show was Loadbang’s performance of “How to Breathe Underwater,” a warm, moody piece by recent YSM alum Chris Cerrone. More than any other composer that evening, Cerrone made excellent use of Loadbang’s instrumentation (trumpet, trombone, bass clarinet, and voice) with close, consonant tunings and softly marcato rhythms." (Soundrat Blog)