Reviews

"Orbit, an intriguing work for flute, clarinet, and electronics... opened with a disturbingly loud electronic hum that effectively depicted the sound of a spacecraft lifting off. The work was tightly constructed, with material for flute, clarinet and electronics freely imitating one another. [Rebecca] Ashe and [Cheryl] Melfi performed effectively in a number of styles, from rapid virtuosic passages to slower, sensual melodies."

-Review of June 20, 2010 performance by the Kansas City Star

"The ephemeral, ambient quality of electroacoustic elements is abundant, at times dominant. But it is important to note that the digital tracks are derived entirely from recordings of Rebecca’s and Cheryl’s own playing, breathing, moving—not from Eichenbaum’s digital waveform library or independent geek artistry in a vacuum... it was heartwarming evidence of a deeper sort of collaboration between performers and composer. Composer/DAW-artist/engineer as performer; performers as engineers/editors/co-composers. There is something profoundly ‘right’ about this...

"[I]n Eichenbaum's Orbit, we have a focused assimilation of the digital and acoustic environments, in which the digital realization is a cohesive part--‘gluey’ elements that hold the entire composition together. The live performers are not ‘bystanders’. They are confronted, yes, by their own DSP-processed previously-recorded sounds...

"A dense polyphony, reminiscent of György Ligeti’s writing for the score of the film ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’: a choir of myriad voices; the mixing and intermingling and asynchronous entries and departures of thousands of voices; microtonal voices, sounding notes a quarter-tone higher or lower than their neighbors; cosmic cacophony tending toward pantheism."

-Review of April 16, 2010 premiere from Chamber Music Today Blog