Green alderman's musical style is his message Angela Carter, Register Staff
NEW HAVEN - Green Party Alderman John Halle has a knack for melding what he dubs "outrageous statements" into classical music or even - opera.
Take for instance "Mortgaging the Earth," an operatic track on a CD he's compiled featuring his compositions.
New York-based sopranos Kristin Nordevaal and Heather Buck of The Sequitur Ensemble cantillate, or chant, excerpts from a controversial memo written by Lawrence Summers when he was vice president of the World Bank in the early 1990s. Summers is now president of Harvard University.
Summers was making a three-pronged argument for why the World Bank should be "encouraging more migration of dirty industries" to less developed countries.
Imagine listening to these words, and yet, feeling like you're at the Metropolitan: "I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable, and we should face up to that."
The memo was made public in February 1992. Halle wrote the music in 2001.
The environmentally conscious legislator bikes to work as an assistant professor of music composition and theory at Yale University.
"That piece is somebody saying something outrageous ,and I made it as pretty as I could," he said.
Economist Doug Henwood, a radio talk show host on WBAI in New York and editor of the monthly newsletter "Left Business Observer," liked the song so much he played it on the air.
"It's this detached but brutal text with high-culture music," Henwood said. "Mostly, I play punk rock and techno and noisy stuff," during musical interludes, Henwood said. "This was a departure for me."
Halle was the first Green Party member known to be elected to the Board of Aldermen in the last century. He represents the city's 9th Ward.
There are nine other Halle compositions on the CD, and more than half have been commercially recorded, such as "Spooks" performed by the Cygnus Ensemble.
Halle has been playing piano since the age of five, and he started composing during his teen years. "It's my life. It isn't a choice; it's a calling," he said.
Once a year he throws a concert with the 8-member collective Common Sense. Next spring they will perform in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
"Concerts can give you the opportunity to sit down and think about things. I like concerts to serve that function, for people to think deeply and carefully about where the world is going," Halle said.
But locals beware. He might set one of your outlandish comments to music.
"I certainly will not rule that out. I'll try to immortalize their deathless words in song," he mused.
In exchange for a donation to the Green Party, you can sample Halle's music by contacting him at john.halle at yale.edu.