Interview, Amanda Lee Falkenberg and Nicole Stott on the Moons Symphony

The planets and space have been inspiring artists and musicians for as long as humans have been looking up at the sky - from plainchant hymns to the creator of the stars, and the heavens declaring the glory of God in Haydn's Creation, to works by Richard Strauss and Nielsen celebrating the sunrise, and more - not to mention any number of soundtracks to films, TV series and games concerned with space. Holst's famous Planets suite, though not strictly speaking a representation of the celestial bodies that give it its name, nevertheless has a distinctly spacefaring air about it, not least with the dissipation of the final movement into interstellar emptiness.

A new work from Amanda Lee Falkenberg (pictured above) provides a new angle on this idea, with a symphony in seven movements inspired not by planets but by the moons that orbit them. I was lucky enough to be able to speak not only to Amanda but to her collaborator Nicole Stott (pictured left), former astronaut with NASA and now an artist and science educator. In a wide-ranging discussion we talked about the origin and inspiration of the Moons Symphony, the relationship between science and the arts, and both women's hopes for what impact the symphony could have.

Amanda, parallels will naturally be drawn with Holst’s Planets, which of course isn’t really about planets but about gods and goddesses. Your symphony, though, really is about the moons themselves. Why did you go down the science-inspired route rather than the mythology route?

ALF: Well, I guess the first thing to say is that I wasn't influenced by Holst's setting of his sights on the planets!

But one thing that really sparked it all off is this idea of the new Goldilocks Zone. Earth is in the main Goldilocks Zone, but since the Voyager space probes started venturing beyond the asteroid belt we've been discovering active, dynamic worlds that could harbour microbial life. So it's the moons that scientists are far more interested in these days than the planets.

You mention that this project arose out of an Arabic-inspired work, Crossing of the Crescent Moon - was it mere luck that your research for that composition led you on to articles about the moons of the outer Solar System?

I was doing research on the ancient symbolism of crescent moons, and I came across this article Ten of the Weirdest Moons in our Solar System - and I realised there were so many more moons I could be writing about. They have some interesting properties just from a visual perspective. So I realised they needed music and emotion, and that was how the project started.

Who would you say were the main influences on your approach to writing this work?

It's a mixture of Ravel, Debussy, and Stravinsky. A lot of these worlds contain water, for example the geysers on Enceladus, so naturally I'm drawn to a slight Debussy-like language to get that sort of thing across. Equally with a choir you can't get too experimental with your tonal language; I wanted it to be quite lyrical so that the science could be understood, and to be accessible to a huge range of audiences - so a tonal, cinematic kind of approach.

With so many moons to choose from, how did you settle on the selection of seven that the symphony comprises?

It wasn't originally going to be seven, it was going to be six (and that's an interesting story in its own right which is how Nicole comes into it). I treated them almost like actors auditioning for a film! They have personalities and unique qualities, and I wanted to keep them distinct enough that when I came to put their lives and stories to music, I could bring out their different personalities.

The backstory of the seventh moon is that when I was composing for Miranda, one of the moons of Uranus, I remember something suddenly didn't feel right. There was this one day where I was so affected by the harsh, brutal edges of the solar system that I suddenly felt "I want to get out of here!" I found myself mentally “beaming” myself back to planet Earth, and I looked up and realised what was missing: Earth's Moon. That's how the seventh moon came about; it comes full circle and ends back where the listener is.

Uranus's moon Miranda, imaged in 1986 by the Voyager 2 space probe.

Rather than relying just on orchestral textures to conjure up moods and impressions, you’ve penned your own texts to each movement. How important do you feel words are in a project like this?

Doing it wordlessly wouldn't have had the right impact. Initially I didn’t intend to include a choir, but as I was researching, it didn't take long before I started realising that there was so much science attached to these worlds. It was an opportunity I just couldn't ignore - if I used a choir to sing the science itself, it would make it so much more relevant and direct.

I took quite an old-school approach to writing the words; I have books and books about the science and I was writing for months about the scientific characteristics. Then when I felt like I'd absorbed enough of all this material, I put it aside and got onto the composing phase of it, which was a different headspace altogether. Then when it came to the libretto, I'd get all my books out again and start figuring out what was a natural fit for a given phrase.

Nicole, you've been forging a career as a science educator and communicator since retiring from NASA in 2015 – how did you become involved with this project?

NS: Surprisingly, it wasn't really through the scientific side of it at all. Amanda and I had been introduced to one another as a result of our membership in an incredible organisation called the International Association of Astronomical Artists - check them out, you'll be in awe of what you find there! - and also this serendipitous intersection of the missions that we were both on at that time associated with the Moon. Amanda was creating her Moons Symphony and I was in the middle of helping to prepare for a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 8 mission that gave us the iconic Earthrise image. I'd like to think that it's through our meeting that we're now blessed with the seventh movement of Amanda's symphony, depicting Earth's own Moon.

William Anders's Earthrise photograph, taken from the surface of the Moon on Christmas Eve 1968.

Inevitably the career of an astronaut is a series of dauntingly impressive achievements, but one stuck out for me – you're the first person ever to have painted a watercolour in space. How did that come about?

It's one of my personal highlights of that mission. I now like to think these are the kinds of things that put the "human" into "human spaceflight". Honestly, when I was getting ready to fly to space the idea never crossed my mind – with it being my first mission, I didn't want to be the one that screwed anything up, and I was more concerned with making sure I had all my checklists in order.

But thankfully my friend Mary Jane Anderson reminded me that I would be living there, not just working there, and that I would be in space for several months, and I should bring something with me that I enjoy doing on Earth for the spare time that I might have. And that ended up being a small watercolour kit, and I am very thankful that that happened. I think it was pivotal in what I pursued after retiring from NASA, and I am especially glad that my love of space and art can continue to come together - on this post-NASA mission!

It's also brought me together with extraordinary people like Amanda, people who have what I believe is a shared purpose.

Nicole painting aboard the International Space Station in 2009.

Various space-based musical performances have happened since humans ventured into space, from an unauthorised rendition of Jingle Bells in 1965 to various transmissions from the ISS. Do you think there's potential for this to expand and even become more formalised?

I certainly hope so. It has been going on since the very beginning and I expect it to continue expanding, whether it's formalised or not. What Chris Hadfield did, recording his version of Space Oddity, was particularly good.

What the crews are demonstrating here is the importance of bringing our humanity into space with us. I think this will continue; we do this everywhere we go, and I believe that art and music are the most positive aspects of humanity that we could take out there with us. From a spaceflight standpoint, it will be even more important for these things to happen as we're travelling places like Mars.

That journey is 79 months, and at some point on that journey the Earth won't look like the Earth from the window any more - you won't have it present for you to maintain a connection with in the same way. So the ability to carry our humanity with us through art and music is not just a desirable thing but actually a necessity.

It reminds me of the MARS-500 project a few years ago which put a small team of people in isolation for a long time, as a test-run for what a journey to Mars would be like.

Absolutely. We have to have that outlet. And the best crew members, the best astronauts and indeed the best musicians are the ones who use their whole brains - figuring out this balance between the technical and the creative, and how we bring that together. And I love that that's happened so beautifully in Amanda's symphony.

Planetary science and music are both expert disciplines with their own unique jargon and complexities. Did you find there was a language barrier between the two of you when you started working together?

It's funny - I don't actually remember feeling that way at the beginning, but I certainly remember it when I was sitting there at St Luke's looking at the score of the music - the meticulousness and thoughtfulness of where that one little cymbal would chime, or the scratching of a drum, or the fact that you needed three different kinds of violins. That complexity in it was almost overwhelming.

And is it the same for you, Amanda, but flipped round the other way?

ALF: The first six moons are based on scientific data brought back from space probes but the seventh is the emotional kind of "data" brought back from the hearts of astronauts. So my interactions with Nicole over that seventh movement were a very different landscape - it wasn't the science per se. She would say to me that astronauts struggle to communicate the awesome experience of seeing the Earth united and whole from a different vantage point. And when words fail, of course, music takes over.

Note: At this point duty called for Nicole, who had to leave the call in order to help oversee SpaceX's Crew-5 launch to the International Space Station from the Kennedy Space Center.

Amanda, do you have plans for any more collaborative projects of this kind – either inspired by astronomy or by some other scientific discipline?

We have a vision - we want to create a new Earthrise through this symphony, for "Earthlings", and Nicole and I are really passionate about presenting this idea through the powerful and persuasive language of music, to give people that overwhelming feeling of what it feels like without having to leave orbit themselves.

It's about spreading the awe and wonder of it. And the nice thing is about working with the likes of Nicole, and Helen Sharman, is we all have the same positive attitude. Rather than the finger-pointing that happens at gatherings like the recent COP26 summit, we're more about uplifting people through the power of music and space, to make those kinds of decisions.

That's an interesting perspective - I spoke recently to Christopher Tin about a new piece he's written which takes almost the opposite approach, it's essentially a lament for lost biodiversity among birds.

Yes, absolutely - there's enough focus on the doom and gloom. The reasons for the negative framing are obvious, of course - everyone's trying to shine a light on depressing topics - but I think we all believe that there's a way for this symphony to address a lot of these situations in a way that will inspire the next generation. In the seventh movement, the fragility of the solo boy's voice coming in and then being supported from behind by the choir is my way of saying that the children aren't alone in this, and we'll find solutions together.

I hadn't realised quite how significantly that last movement reframes the entire work - it sounds like that seventh moon has really become the heart of the piece for you.

It's the crowning moment. Despite the possibilities of life out in the new Goldilocks Zone, there's absolutely nothing like the Earth anywhere in our Solar System.