On 27 March Otto Tausk conducts the Belgian debut of Jonathan Harvey’s 80 Breaths for Tokyo with the Belgian National Orchestra at BOZAR, as part of the 2026 KlaraFestival. The 17-minute work is scored for large orchestra and fixed audio, whose forces include two harps, piano, electronic organ, and five percussionists; the woodwind section is bolstered by four flutes and enriched with the dark hues of the oboe d’amore.
A highly meditative piece, 80 Breaths for Tokyo explores what Harvey calls “the infinitely variable, infinitely subtle and coloured ambiguity of breath”, recalling its use in Buddhist meditation and Yoga, as well as its importance in human rites and social events. An unhurried melodic figure in the upper reaches of the violins is turned over throughout the work, as the orchestral accompaniment responds with increasingly complexity and richness to each iteration, before concluding with magisterial orchestral outburst – its most emphatic musical exhalation – after a virtuosic trombone solo. Harvey describes the work as “the result of listening to slow music and enjoying its power over the mind and body”.
The breath is a recurring motif in Harvey’s output, and tied especially to the idea of inspiration, whose Latin root evokes the divine animation of the soul. It is subjected to an electronic transfiguration in Act one of the 1992 opera Inquest of Love. It also forms the basis of Tranquil Abiding (1998), a 14-minute work for chamber orchestra that founded on a simple oscillation between an ‘inhalation’ on an upper note and an ‘exhalation’ on a lower one.
Harvey’s final orchestral work, 80 Breaths for Tokyo was created for the Suntory Hall International Program for Music Composition 2008. It premiered in 2010 with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Ryusuke Numajiri as part of as focus on Harvey at the Music for Today 2 summer festival, alongside Body Mandala. It received its UK premiere at the 2013 Aldeburgh Festival from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Ilan Volkov.