GLAST-nost

July 14, 2008

When NASA finally launched the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) on June 11, the Kennedy Space Center in Florida celebrated with a unique event: the world premiere of a musical piece composed specifically in honor of the mission, performed by the American Brass Quintet. The GLAST Prelude, for brass quintet is the creation of classical composer Nolan Gasser, whose other work includes 3 Jazz Preludes, for piano, and a four-part symphonic oratorio, American Festivals.

It's a rare composer these days who finds inspiration from a NASA space mission -- really, Gustav Holst's The Planets is the only example that springs immediately to mind, and that was quite awhile ago. Sure, Gasser earned a PhD in musicology from Stanford, specializing in medieval and renaissance music history (by far my favorite periods). But he also has some serious tech-savvy chops.  For starters, he is artistic director of Classical Archives, the largest classical music  site on the Web.

Gasser is also the chief musical architect of the Music Genome Project. That's the musical technology behind the Pandora personalized radio Web application, which now has some 10 million subscribers. For all who chafe at commercial radio -- the limited playlists, too-frequent ads, and constant squawking of radio DJs desperately trying to measure up to the shock-jocks of yesteryear -- Pandora is a dream come true.

The GLAST Prelude is just a multimedia sonic appetizer, however. Gasser is working on a second, much more ambitious composition inspired by GLAST, called Cosmic Reflection. The longer piece will also be a multimedia project, featuring images from the GLAST mission set to full orchestra and narration. The scope is huge: nothing less than replaying the entire 13.7 billion year history of the universe in a mere 40 minutes, with a libretto penned by none other than Case Western physicist Lawrence Krauss (perhaps best known as the author of The Physics of Star Trek).

Frankly, the thought of letting a physicist loose onto a poor unsuspecting libretto makes me shudder with trepidation. Creating a compelling work of art often requires playing a bit fast and loose with key facts, which is anathema to most physicists. But Krauss will be aided in this endeavor by Pierre Schwob, CEO of Classical Archives, who has both a musical background and is something of an amateur cosmologist. So the chances of creating something artistically beautiful that won't set the scientists' teeth on edge are far better.

We'll be able to see, and hear, for ourselves what Gasser and the GLAST folk come up with next fall, when Cosmic Reflections makes its world premiere at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC -- part of a scientific symposium presenting the first of results from the GLAST mission. In the meantime, have a listen to The GLAST Prelude yourself: it's available for download in various formsts here. [h/t: Science Fair]

Photo: Artist's rendering of GLAST in orbit around Earth. Source: NASA/General Dynamics C4 Systems