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Nomadic Messenger of the Realms

from Celestial Incantations by Sounds of Space Project

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Nomadic Messenger of the Realms
Location: Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko (540 million km from the Sun)
Date: August 2014

Here we listen to the ‘sound’ of a comet based on recordings by the magnetometer experiment on board the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft. This instrument first detected unexpected magnetic oscillations at a rate of 40-50 mHz, well below the audible frequency range, when the spacecraft was about 100 km from the comet. The 'sound' of the comet we hear in this track was created by the German composer Manuel Senfft (www.tagirijus.de) and is a fully artistic piece based on these oscillations.

The comet’s sound is quite spectacular, moving up and down in pitch in the manner of a series of frog calls or like a synthesiser with a mod wheel. We could not imagine a more telling ‘sound’ for this phenomenon. It is combined with a piece Kim had already written for the Australian cellist Chris Pidcock (Sydney Symphony Orchestra) that stretches the possibilities of the cello in terms of pitch, harmonic language and timbre. Premiered at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse in 2018 this cello work now has a new life as a duet with a rapidly moving space body. There is real drama in this work as the cello and the comet duel to take the ascendancy. Listen out for some dissonant harmony in this piece.

Artwork Inspirations: Lonely comet in vast space, glow of its soul, more alive than we are? Colour stripped for emphasis. This is a digital collage that includes an image of Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko courtesy of ESA. www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images

credits

from Celestial Incantations, released June 21, 2021
Kim Cunio electroacoustics
Chris Pidcock cello
Diana Scarborough track artwork
Nigel Meredith science and 'sound' curation
‘Sound’ of the comet provided courtesy of the European Space Agency

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Sounds of Space Project Cambridge, UK

Sounds of Space Project is a collaboration with space weather research scientist Nigel Meredith (BAS), multimedia artist Diana Scarborough, and ANU Head of Music and composer Kim Cunio. Our projects emerge through a shared process of creative engagement and cross-disciplinary collaboration inspired by the 'sounds of space' from Earth to beyond the galaxy. ... more

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