Music symphony celebrates space - 23rd June 2023

In a ground-breaking collaboration between the US National Philharmonic Orchestra and NASA, the magic of music has been fused with the mysteries of the universe, resulting in a Space Symphony entitled 'Cosmic Cycles'.

As a backdrop and inspiration, the composition uses images captured by the James Webb space telescope and blends them with music 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."

Split into seven movements, the symphony merges sight and sound, travelling outwards from our solar system to the cosmos' unseen, distant fringes. The piece shifts from the initial focus on the Sun, to Earth, the planets and on to the universe and its evolution, including the Big Bang.

Supplementing the breathtaking telescope images are both astronauts' video and photographic material of Earth, and also epic visualisations of NASA data.

For both Dehlinger and also Wade Sisler, executive producer at Goddard Space Flight Center, the images' power stems from the fact that they are undeniably real, not AI-generated.

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."

The composition doesn't merely take its inspiration from NASA's stunning images. Dehlinger even sampled the extraordinary sounds of a black hole phenomenon, which he's integrated into the synthesiser of the orchestra.

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."

Despite the orchestra having already given their first live performance, every curious terrestrial being's been granted the opportunity to absorb the wonder of Cosmic Cycles, via NASA's website.