Music symphony celebrates space - 23rd June 2023

Space and music have been blended together in a fantastic partnership between the US National Philharmonic Orchestra and NASA. The result is a symphony about space named 'Cosmic Cycles'.

Images captured by the James Webb space telescope have inspired the work. Meanwhile, composer Henry Dehlinger provided the music to accompany the visuals.

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 piece unites music and science in a unique manner and is divided into seven cycles, starting with the Sun and moving onto the Earth, the Moon, the planets and the cosmos - including the Big Bang. It combines the telescope images with additional footage of Earth from videos and photographs taken by astronauts. These are mixed with fascinating visualisations of NASA's scientific data.

For Dehlinger and also Wade Sisler, from the Goddard Space Flight Center, the reason for the images' impact is due to the fact they're actually 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."

NASA's stunning images weren't the only source of inspiration for the work. Dehlinger even chose to incorporate the unique and bizarre sound of a black hole, using a synthesiser.

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."

Although the live premiere took place last month, it's available to any member of the public via NASA's website, as long as you're on planet Earth.