Its aim is to bridge the constructed cultural divides that appear to separate people from each other, and to exhibit such bridges, all through socialized sound in live musical performance.

The ETO demonstrates these pan-human linkages musically, in two ways: (1) socially, in the group itself, which is diverse, in backgrounds, languages, ages; crossing boundaries of all sorts - including university students, staff, and faculty as well as members of the broader Edmonton community, and (2) musically, by highlighting the flow of music through people, via non-stop boundaryless performances, linking diverse regions and societies around the world through continuous sheets of sound. Socially, we aim to represent our community, drawing membership from every corner, in all its diversity, transcending rather than reinforcing boundaries in our performances. Musically, we focus on the idea that music crosses putative boundaries, just like we do, and erases them in the process - we look for melodies and sounds that have traveled, and invent new ones that will travel in the future. The ETO is committed to representing and creating connections above and beyond perceptions of individual, discrete cultures, imagined to be separable, countable bubbles. Rather, in our view, culture is individual - we're all culturally unique, just as we're genetically unique, and we each view culture from a unique perspective... at the same time the phenomenon of culture is pan-human, connecting us all. It is impossible to separate one culture from another... cultures are not internally homogeneous, because too much is shared, and all is in motion. We transcend culture considered as a countable noun to reveal -- and help create-- a more general cultural flow, through sound.