“BREATH is absolutely fundamental to us, to all of us,” singer AJ America says as she and the Luminescence Chamber Singers honour that most basic of human functions in a concert called “drawing breath”.

To America, a livewire member of the Canberra arts community and artistic director of the ensemble, singing is technically the process of transforming wind into sound – “it’s such a basic part of the experience of what it is to be alive”.

She’s right. I’ve been looking into the pre-history of singing and have found that studies of the Neanderthals’ nasal, ear and sinus features as well as the larynx of modern humans, show that our ancient ancestors have had the physical ability to sing for many millennia. “There is no human culture that doesn’t sing,” America believes. 

“Our breath is a base expression of our feelings, we let out an anxious or surprised gasp, or a sigh of relief,” she says.

“We take a deep breath when we brace ourselves, and hold our breath when we wait. We talk about our breath when we are awestruck.”

It also has a darker side. She says that in recent years we have witnessed and experienced violent asphyxiation in many forms, from the thick smoke of bushfires to the spectre of respiratory infection, even as the words “I can’t breathe” resonate around the world as a reminder of the ongoing persecution of black communities.

With all this in mind, she and her fellow sopranos Veronica Milroy, Rachel Mink, bass Jack Stephens and tenor Dan Walker will be exploring work related to breathing by everyone from Hildegard von Bingen to Pink Floyd.

To America, singing as a form of breath involves what she calls “most basic symbolism, as it tells us about our emotional state”.

For instance, she says, we stutter or splutter to express emotion and in David Lang’s “When It Is Time” from “Little Match Girl Passion”, the stuttering and spluttering reflects life, emotion and the flickering of a match.

“Drawing breath” goes back to medieval times, as with 14th century French poet-composer Guillaume de Machaut’s “Motet no 2: Suospiro”. 

Sighing proves to be the most popular form of breathing in the concert and is also explored in “Sospirava il mio core” and “Dolcissimo Sospiro” by Italian madrigal composer Carlo Gesualdo and 15th century Flemish Adrian Willaert’s “Sospiri Miei.”

But the concert also features a few new works, not least Pink Floyd’s “Breathe” and Florence Welch’s “Between Two Lungs”, both arranged by ensemble member Walker, who has also written his own new work for the concert, “Listen, Are You Living Just a Little and Calling it a Life?” 

There’ll also be a new commission from Canberra’s Jess Green and the world premiere of “Many Passes and Yearnings” by rising composer Connor D’Netto.

Inevitably, the theme of breath will lead to virtuosic singing, most notably in Brenda Gifford’s “Yangaa”, where a single word from the Yuin language, repeated over and over again, turns on a very simple melody with a virtuosic texture.

Grief plays its part in the concert in Andrew Ford’s Red Dirt Hymns, “Dark Cloud” and “Isolation Hymn”. 

Hymns, she observes, are a very special way of drawing breath because there are always lots of people involved. 

“Everything in this concert is totally unaccompanied, just five voices, pure and simple”, but within that there will be chant, unison and solo singing.

Luminescence, which will tour the concert to Braidwood, Goulburn, Orange and Glebe, will perform at the National Museum’s Gandel Atrium on October 16.