Breath Cycle: A Community Opera Project for People with Cystic Fibrosis

Breath Cycle
Composer Gareth Williams and librettist David James Brock created Breath Cycle songs, duets and ensemble pieces – a concept community opera project for people with cystic fibrosis, inspired by conversations they had with participants during the project and bespoke for each voice they encountered.

Together with Scottish Opera and Gartnavel General Hospital's respiratory unit, the project explored the effect of learning classical singing techniques and breath control on the respiratory health of Breath Cycle participants. Due to a high risk of infection, people with cystic fibrosis can't physically spend time together. With this in mind, most of this project was developed and presented online. Breath Cycle considered how participants can interact safely with each other, used the internet as a place to meet, learn and build a community. Voices were recorded individually and put together through video and sound editing.

The project has had clinical and creative outcomes described on the Breath Cycle website - www.breathcycle.com