Here’s an idea to restore your faith in humanity.

Luke Jerram, a sound artist, working with international hot air balloon pilot Peter Dalby and composer Dan Jones has developed The Sky Orchestra, an ongoing research project that explores how one can perceive a sonic experience while asleep. It is an experimental artwork bringing together performance and music to create visual audio installations within the air and within the mind.

Seven hot air balloons, each with speakers attached, take off at dawn to fly across a city. Each balloon plays a different element of the musical score creating a massive audio performance that many hundreds of people experience subconsciously as the balloons fly over their homes.

Many hundreds of people experience the Sky Orchestra event live as the balloons fly over their homes at dawn. The airborne project is both a vast spectacular performance as well as an intimate, personal experience. The music is audible, both consciously and subconsciously, to all those in the balloon’s flight paths….

The residents of Stratford-upon-Avon, Will Shakespeare’s home town, were treated to this delight this morning — with the added attraction of Royal Shakespeare Company actors reading bits of the Bard’s works. One resident emailed the BBC Today programme: “If music be the food of love, I’ve got indigestion”.