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New project joins space and art - 23rd June 2023

Music and space don't usually go together. But the US national orchestra and NASA decided to work together. They made 'Cosmic Cycles'. Cosmic Cycles uses music and pictures.

The pictures are from a space telescope. Henry Dehlinger wrote the music.

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."

There are seven parts to the piece. It starts with the Sun. Then it goes on to the Earth and the Moon. Then it tells us about the planets. The last part's about the universe. There are photographs and videos from astronauts too. And there are pictures from NASA's technology.

So, what makes this special? It's not a film. These pictures are real.

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 piece isn't only about amazing pictures. Dehlinger learnt about the sounds of space too. He put some space sounds into the music.

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 first concert of Cosmic Cycles was last month. It's now on NASA's website, on planet Earth.