Lorelei Ensemble has announced the launch of its new album and a corresponding tour.

Entitled “Beaufort Scales,” the work draws its title from Francis Beaufort’s Wind Force Scale (the measure of wind speed, originally as related to observed sea conditions) created in 1805. The text includes texts by Melville, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Anne Carson, and the King James Bible. At large, the work explores the shifting environment changes.

“In the summer of 2018, I was composer-in-residence at a festival in southern Oregon,” said composer Christopher Cerrone in an official press statement. “Days before I arrived, terrible wildfires broke out, its smoke blocking out the sun during the day and rendering the air unbreathable without a mask. These conditions lasted for weeks, and forced the festival, which is normally held outdoors, to move into a high school auditorium. Although wildfires are a natural occurrence, they have unfortunately become a frequent, annual occurrence in that area because of climate change. I knew after that experience that I had to find a way to artistically document this experience. Beaufort Scales became that vehicle. I wanted to do what art does best: document the precognitive feeling of something so strange and eerie and new, for which language does not exist yet.”

The 36-minute oratorio received its world premiere in November 2023 and will now be presented in a concert series that opens on March 7, 2024 at The Dome in Yale Schwarzman Center. There will be additional performances on March 20, 22, and 24, at Penn State Behrend, Juniata College, and Syracuse University, respectively. Also on the program are works by Meredith Monk, Molly Herron, Elena Ruehr, Elijah Daniel Smith and Natalia Guerrero.

The showcases will be directed by Beth Willer of Lorelei Ensemble and presented in co-production between the Schwarzman Center and Yale Glee Club.