Salle Des Departs

Music follows us everywhere we go. We hear music when we walk into a store, wait in a doctor's office, when we’re put on hold, and even pumping gas. We’re greeted by music, sometimes popular, sometimes classical, frequently, pretty bad. In many cases, composers create those tunes for a unique purpose or to create a specific mood for offices, grocery stores, or restaurants.

In this story, we hear from a composer who was faced with a very different, very demanding kind of challenge – to create background music for a morgue. The composer is David Lang - probably best known for his work with the inventive Bang on a Can ensemble. A hospital in Garches, France, asked him to write music for their morgue, or "Salle Des Departs." He spoke about the commission with producer Jocelyn Gonzalez for the public radio program Radio Lab.

(Photo by Môsieur J. via Flickr/Creative Commons)