New project joins space and art - 23rd June 2023

The national orchestra of the US and the American space agency NASA have created something special. It's called 'Cosmic Cycles'.

Cosmic Cycles uses amazing images from the James Webb space telescope. The space film is shown with music, which was written by Henry Dehlinger.

Henry Dehlinger: "For me, as I was writing it, it was a meditation. And I think we are bringing the audience along to experience that very same meditation. I looked at each film as a meditation into itself - a meditation on the Sun, a meditation on our home planet, a meditation on the cosmos generally."

The music, or symphony, is divided into seven parts. It moves from the Sun, the Earth, the Moon, the planets and ends with the cosmos. Art and science are mixed in an extraordinary way.

As well as the telescope images, Cosmic Cycles includes astronauts' photos and videos. It also uses NASA's technological images. It's hard to believe that the pictures aren't made up, or created by AI. They aren't science fiction either, says Dehlinger.

Henry Dehlinger: "I think the music written for a lot of those space movies, space films are, is, is fantastic. But what we're seeing tonight at this premiere is not science fiction. It's the actual science. It's the real deal. We're actually looking at the Sun. We're actually looking at the solar system. We're actually looking at the origins of the universe."

Cosmic Cycles is more than surprising, beautiful images with music. Dehlinger, also experienced space sounds, like a black hole. He added these to his symphony.

Henry Dehlinger: And so when you, when you see the black holes in tonight's performance, you're actually gonna hear what a black hole sounds like to the human ear, while you're looking at the images of the black hole. And it's an incredibly spooky, eerie sound."

The symphony's already had its first performance. But it's available for anyone on planet Earth, wherever you are, on NASA's website.