The late composer Gérard Grisey created the work Le Noir de l’étoile based around pulsars : Sounds of the cosmos, as muse and metronome – The Boston Globe –

But for all of our skyward magniloquence over the years, the universe has rarely answered back. One notable exception however came in 1985, when the French spectralist composer Gérard Grisey first heard the sounds of the Vela pulsar as captured by radio telescopes. He was transfixed. In their charismatic rhythmic beating Grisey found a kind of primordial music, a celestial metronome, and a link to an event dating to the most distant reaches of human history. The Vela was created by a supernova that exploded some 12,000 years ago — a sight, we are told, that may have been visible to primitive man in broad daylight.

Grisey knew at once that these sounds must find a place in his own music. He ultimately took the sampled beating of two pulsars — the Vela, and a second pulsar referred to only by its coordinates, 0359-54 — and placed them at the center of a large-scale work for six percussionists and electronics titled “Le Noir de l’Étoile.” Completed in 1990, “Le Noir” is still rarely tackled given its fierce technical demands, but each time constitutes a genuine event. For its performance on Friday night, the ambitious ensemble Sound Icon took over Somerville’s Center for the Arts at the Armory.

Here’s a different performance of the work given on Nov. 19, 2011

at Rowan University by Dean Witten with an Alumni All-Star Ensemble. The musicians were Matthew Witten, percussion 2; Anthony DiBartolo, percussion 3; Brittany Hoffman, percussion 4; AJ Lustig, percussion 5 and Mika Godbole, percussion 6.