Virus Bomb – a play with immersive audio

I had an incredible adventure working with the award winning artist, Mumtaz Hussain on a completely unique piece of theatre. We started rehearsals for the 80 minute play with a cast of 15 during the summer of 2022 and presented our show at Engleman Hall of Baruch College in NYC on October 18th to a full house with a standing ovation and impromptu speech by an international diplomat in attendance.

My goal was to compliment the surrealist script which was roughly a hilarious critique on some common cultural takeaways from the American public during the pandemic. I did so by creating an overture to the piece to ease our audience into what was sure to be a completely unexpected evening.

Lyrics to the Prelude sung by Maria Eleni Zollo:

You can feel free.

Free without fear, without doubt.

Free to sense like a child.

Childlike wonder, wonderful!

Now hear my spark travel by through the universe, an electric sigh.

Time and light together through wonder electrify our souls and boil our fears into the clouds.

Shivers in between the rocky cracked walls we place to encase this moment of light take their trek high!

Imagination is the spark of love.

My own thoughts can make this world change, change everywhere.

I am ready to make the change here now.

Everything’s changing – transforming.

Be transformed!

Freedom awaits.

This text I wrote was mostly recorded by the singer and mixed in 7.1 surround sound for the audience to enjoy as a taped playback, a swirling novelty in the musical form of a fugue. The subject was sung live and then the countersubjects (3) started from the front left of the stage traveling back a hundred feet then to stage right following the walls up to fill the room with four equal sources which inevitably became a battle between the taped version and our live singer, who ultimately prepared the illusion of whipping the taped parts into a new timbre, the timpani – in other words the taped voices became transformed into a drum! That drum accompanied the next part of the overture which was a large symphonic work with ballet.

All in all, musically, the play had the prelude a postlude, 3 ballet scenes and 4 long interludes, making about 45 minutes of unaccompanied orchestral music, along with the underscore to the play. It was a truly awesome experience to write music for Mumtaz’s dreamlike off-Broadway play, one I hope to repeat.