Concert Works
Noah has written extensively for the concert hall. His music has been performed by diverse ensembles, including Vento Chiaro woodwind quintet, Axiom Brass, and the UNC Orchestra. His Rules and Regulations song cycle for piano and soprano voice won the North Carolina MTNA Composition Contest in the Senior division.
Harmlessly, Harpoons (2021)
Box Art for Moby-Dick: The Game
The final boss battle theme from "Moby-Dick," a 2008 video game adaptation of Moby-Dick. The game was the flagship title of the Super Special Fanicom (nicknamed "Sef" by fans), a fan-made retro console released the same year. Players who endured the surprisingly detailed reenactment of the Pequod’s long sea voyage faced off against the White Whale in a final three-part boss fight that demanded mastery of virtually every type of gameplay encountered over the course of the game. These included encounters with various whale species in Pokemon-style wild battles, point-and-click rendezvous with fellow whaling vessels, rope and harpoon crafting, and—most infamously—writing Ishmael’s journal, i.e. tapping through unabridged chapters of the novel in unskippable text sequences. While the third and final whale chase is perhaps best remembered for First Mate Starbuck’s frequent entreaties to the player to “Watch the Crotch!”, a phrase memorialized in countless memes, the percussive score for this climactic showdown with the legendary leviathan remains popular with game music fans.
“I wanted the energy of a Kirby final boss theme mixed with the gravitas of an orchestral sound,” Solomon told an interviewer in 2012. “I don’t know if 'Harmlessly, Harpoons' is as memorable a theme as, say, ‘Miracle Matter’ from Kirby 64, but I’d like to think it energizes players. Or at least, gives them something to enjoy while they’re waiting for the rowers to get close to Moby-Dick.”
The Fanicom is, in most respects, a hybrid of Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and PlayStation 1 hardware. Its sound chip, however, is a notably non-retro exception. Named the “Yahama MY0062,” this custom SPU comes with 24 channels, 4 GB RAM, and 128 kbps. These specs allowed “Dick Chase” composer Sifron Solomon to use a sample library of orchestral percussion that is far more realistic than the tinny chimes and drum kits sampled in earlier game consoles, but still primitive compared to the live orchestral music recorded in modern AAA games.