Nick Hallett

In 2009, Performa commissioned me to compose a work for the concert Music for 16 Futurist Noise Intoners, at Town Hall.  Conducted and overseen by Luciano Chessa, this was an opportunity to write for newly constructed Intonarumori, based upon the original designs of Luigi Russolo.  I composed a work for two bass-baritones (David Adam Moore and Robert Osborne) and the full set of noise instruments, titled Falcon (Heene) Ascending, referencing a fragment of Walt Whitman and the popular 2009 news story of the "balloon boy" soaring across the Colorado sky, which turned out to be a fake.  There is also a nod to James Tenney's For Ann Rising in the piece's use of Shepard Tone.  The work was reprised and recorded with bass baritone Nicholas Isherwood and released on the Sub Rosa label in 2013.