On daily basis our minds are full with terrible news, scary events and life threatening human activities. Yes, news agencies make a living from delivering fear, but we must admit they have plenty to choose from!
For this very reason, it was so refreshing to read about a news that is simply beautiful and noble! On the 1st December 2022, humans, instead of crushing each other’s skull, decided to gather an orchestra, invite a retired world famous conductor and play some music in and for the universe!
Popular Beethoven Magazine has a comprehensive article on NASA’s Voyager I. and II. (space probes) that carry golden records with images, music, sounds and greetings from the human race. These probes had been travelling from 1977 and already left the Solar-system into deep space. The longest music on the golden records is, of course, from our beloved composer Beethoven!
|Related: Interstellar Beethoven: the Golden Record in space
This time, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) had a different idea. In a statement put out before the event they say:
“The raging novel coronavirus that has spread around the world; the suffering, and sadness from the war in Europe—as we face this difficult era, now is not the time for division; now is the time to help and cooperate with each other as fellow citizens of Earth.
Music can transcend words, borders, ethnicities, and the atmosphere to directly connect the hearts of people.
All of us as living beings on Earth are the same, and we are one.”
Under the project name One Earth Mission, they involved the famous Saito Kinen Orchestra, 87-year-old Seiji Ozawa (the renowned composer with 50 years of history behind him) and astronaut Koichi Wakata from International Space Station. The music they selected for the event is Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Egmont” Overture, op. 84.
This occasion was the first-ever, when a live orchestra played from Earth, to space!
More on the event and video of the play at One Earth Mission.
