Tower Music (Joseph Bertolozzi)

Tower Music (also known as Musique de la Tour), is a musical project and album (2016) by composer and musician Joseph Bertolozzi. The project used microphones placed on the surfaces of the Eiffel Tower to capture the sounds of the tower.[1][2] The resulting samples were used to create a musical composition using only the sounds of the tower itself, with no added digital manipulation or alteration of the sounds.

The 2016 album Tower Music (on the innova label #933), reached #11 on the iTunes Classical charts and #16 on the Billboard Classical Crossover Music chart.[3]

The precursor to the Tower Music project was Bridge Music. Not thinking he could gain access to the Eiffel Tower, Bertolozzi went about creating a composition made using only the unmodified sounds of New York's Mid-Hudson Bridge, for the Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Quadricentennial celebrations in 2009.[4] Bertolozzi used Bridge Music as a proof of concept to present to SETE, the authority that controls the Eiffel Tower.[5] By 2010, plans were underway to attempt field recording and a live performance on the Eiffel Tower.[6][7]

After a formal meeting with SETE in November 2010, the project was approved in March 2011.[8] In January 2013, Bertolozzi met with Eiffel Tower officials and reviewed what areas would be appropriate to record audio samples.[9] Field recording of samples took place May 27[10] through June 7, 2013.[11] Bertolozzi next reviewed, cataloged and edited each sample.[12][13] The process of writing the final composition began in February 2014 and went until October 2014.[14] After finalizing a computerized version of the musical composition, work began on a recorded album of Tower Music. Preliminary mixing beginning in April 2015, with Paul Kozel at the Sonic Arts Center at the City College of New York.[15][16] The album was released on April 29, 2016, on the innova label.[17]