Imagine you are waking at dawn in London to the sounds of an orchestra, sounds not delivered via CD or radio or television but from the sky. You might imagine you are dreaming.
Pull on a wrap, go outside, look up, and be delighted.
The musical performance you are hearing is brought to you by Sky Orchestra, which takes to London's skies in seven hot air balloons, each equipped with speakers and each playing a different element of a musical score composed by Dan Jones, who is also an award-winning sound designer who works in film and theatre. The music is composed specifically to travel through air over long distances.
A project conceived by artist Luke Jerram of Bristol in collaboration with Jones, and begun in 2003, Sky Orchestra is charting flight paths Londoners may follow by GPS (see the interactive map here).
Below is a video, courtesy of the Guardian, of the ballons taking off and flying at 500 feet through London's skies. Peter Dalby of Phoenix Hot Airships and Balloons is lead pilot. (To play, click the right arrow symbol just above the words "Link to this video".)
Who could not be inspired to find their morning starting like this!
A gallery of images of the balloons in flight is available here.
Sky Orchestra on Twitter
Spend some time at Jerram's site; he's involved in some marvelous art projects, including Aeolus, an acoustic pavilion that sings with the wind, and glass microbiology.
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7 comments:
Maureen, you find the most amazing thins.
so far i watched the video. quite a wonderful dance.
that is just so cool. :)
Now I want to take a balloon ride!
What a fabulous experience - to either be in the sky, or looking up to see those marvelous balloons and hear that music.
Totally lovely and delightful. It's so good to know people like that are in the world!
Beautiful!
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