Omit/Transmit Orchestra debuts ‘Orbituaries’ live at Burlington Bar on Feb. 12, 2025. This is the first version of a multi-movement piece about the soloistic nature of life, energy, and panic, set in a solar system of unique planets, represented by each instrument.
The music is largely improvised according to a main structure (a format written together by the group, called Orbits), with two partially-improvised interludes. This performance is fully instrumental: electric guitar, violin, upright bass, flugelhorn, and 3 synthesizers.
The piece incorporates theatrical elements for the stage. The six musicians each have a personally-selected lamp lighting them in the dark, turned on and off by a footswtich. Over the course of the narrative, a large roll of tinfoil is unfurled between two microphone stands to act as a canvas, a metallic planetary surface, which players manipulate by crinkling, drawing on it with fingernails, or even ripping and dismantling it.
