THE DESERT SKIES MAKE MOUNTAINSCAPES IN NEW YORK CITY: A RAINBOW PASSAGEWAY

A RAINBOW PASSAGEWAY FROM MY WILD HEART
TO TWIRLING
CIRCLING
AROUND METALLIC WINGS & SMOKY WAVES
CHURN TO DARK LOVING SPARKS
THAT CREATE THIS FIRE!
MELTING ROSIN & TASTES OF SALTS
THAT SCRAPE THE BEAUTIFUL SCARS
EARNED IN SURVIVAL OF LONG MORNING DREAMS
THAT LED ME TO THIS SONG
ON THIS DAY
GLOWING FLICKERS IN THE NIGHT
TRAINS THE DANCE
LINED WITH CERTAINTY
WRAPPED IN ARCHING ENDLESS
FASCINATING TRAILS OF HOW MEMORABLY IT REAPPEARS
THOSE PASSENGER CLOUDS
TAKE ME TO THE RIVER
DROP ME OFF BY YOUR SIDE
A HEAVY MASSIVE WEIGHT I LOVE & CARRY
UNTIL I'VE DROPPED LIKE I'VE NEVER WIPED OUT BEFORE
BIT IT SO HARD CLIMBING OVER TREES
MOUNTAINS
ROCK
MIRROR-BALL LAKES
THE GLITTERY SIDEWALK
THE SKYSCRAPERS
GREY GROUNDS WITH PRISMS OF HOME
THAT ALL KISSED MY KNEE
WHEN I DIRECTLY
HAPPILY
FELL
FOR YOU
FAVORITE VISIONS IN MY MIND
HERE'S A SONG TO TRACE THE TIME
WALK DREAM STEPS TAKE THE CLIMB
KISSED MY KNEE
MIRAGE SO FINE*++*+**+*

Excerpt from Ortman’s "THE SKYSCRAPERS"

The SAVVYZΛΛR airwaves will be treated this Sunday with a new sonic piece, commissioned for STANDING IN THE CRACKS OF MULTIPLE HISTORIES, our project tracing counter-narratives to histories of US colonialism and imperialism.

The mix is birthed from the rosined-out beast of White Mountain Apache musician, composer and collaborator Laura Ortman’s tough stained violin: emerging deranged crumpled wings, twirling in starlight and oil slickness and shininess; incorporating over-rosining to add smoke, dust, wind and slow-motion grittiness in her scored, improvised compositions for amplified violin, Apache violin, whistles, tree branches, slides, guitar picks, bells and tuning fork. We jump into a journey of story through sounds infused with rebellion, essences of clouded dreams, prisms of survival, wailing scars, and spirals of transition and recollection. Plummet with us.

Laura Ortman (White Mountain Apache)  is a soloist musician, composer and collaborator across multiple platforms, including recorded albums, live performances, and filmic and artistic soundtracks. She has collaborated with artists such as Tony Conrad, Jock Soto, Raven Chacon, Nanobah Becker, Okkyung Lee, Demian DinéYazhi, among others. A violinist, Ortman is versed in Apache violin, piano, electric guitar, keyboards, and amplified violin, and is a producer of field recordings, often also singing through a megaphone.

Ortman has performed at The Whitney Museum of American Art, Guggenheim Museum, Venice Biennale, Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, MASS MoCA, MCA Chicago, REWIRE Festival at the Hague to name a few, among countless established and DIY venues in the US, Canada, Mexico, and Europe. In 2008, She founded the Coast Orchestra, an all-Native American orchestral ensemble that performed a live soundtrack to Edward Curtis’s film In the Land of the Head Hunters (1914), the first silent feature film to star an all-Native American cast.

Ortman is the recipient of the 2025 Pioneer Works Music Residency, 2023 Institute of American Indian Arts Fellowship, 2022 Forge Project Fellowship, 2022 United States Artists Fellowship, among others. Ortman was also a participating artist in the 2019 Whitney Biennial. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. Ortman is set to have her Carnegie Hall premiere in New York City with the Kronos Quartet in April 2026.

All music is written and performed by Laura Ortman.
All music is recorded by Martin Bisi, Brooklyn, New York.

Featuring: Amplified violin, Apache violin, Acoustic violin, Electric guitar, Pedal steel guitar, Vocals, Megaphone, Field recordings, tambourine, pine needles, amplified Helpinstill Roadmaster 64 piano, Casio, bells, NYC subway recordings, whistles, and sampled Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.