Here's an interesting Hot Air Balloons news story.
We first heard about this from the
BBC
Website which includes a "Pictures Stories"
feature about the Balloon Orchestra .
Credit: Sky Orchestra Photo by Thierry Grobet
This is all about a group of Hot Air Balloons taking
off together (same time and place) during the early
morning. There are seven hot air balloons in the
group, each with speakers attached. They take off
at dawn to fly with a planned/expected route across
a city. This means that the co-ordinators pay very
careful attention to the weather, weather forecasts,
and wind directions in the area in order to choose
a launch site on the side of the city from which
the wind is coming. The wind then takes the balloons
gracefully over the city until they land (not necessarily
together - that's unlikely) on the other side of
the city. During the flight/s each balloon plays
a different element of the musical score so that
the combined effect is massive "audio landscape".
The Sky Orchestra is a collaborative project involving
highly skilled people from very different disciplines.
Luke
Jerram is working with international hot air
balloon pilot Peter Dalby and composer Dan Jones.
So far supporters of the project have included the
RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company), AHRC (Arts and
Humanities research Council), DA2, Fierce Festival,
NESTA (The National Endowment for Science, Technology
and the Arts), and JVC, Motorman.
For further details of this ingenious achievement,
visit the Sky
Orchestra page on Luke Jerram's website.
Oh, and if you unexpectedly hear music as you
wake-up one morning, don't worry - it might just
be the Balloon Orchestra.
Date of this News Page: 22 March
2007.
Click here to return to
the list of Hot Air Balloon News items. |
