Astronomy Explained to Audiences Through Music and Photography
When Jose Francisco Salgado was growing up in Puerto Rico and deciding over a career, he was torn between astronomy, audio and photography. These days he pursues all three in his role as astronomer with Chicago’s Adler Planetarium and his worldwide travels to communicate science as a result of the arts incorporating visual artistry and new music.
Dr. Salgado appeared most recently at Wolf Trap Farm Park where the National Symphony Orchestra performed Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” in HD to talk in regards to the accompanying film he created from NASA images and other visual resources. The program opened with themes from space-related films to whet appetites for that visual treat accompanying Holst’s orchestral suite.
“For the past ten years, I’ve been combining science and art by applying art as being a hook to get attention, then adding science as a result of astronomical photos and photographs I take from the evening sky when visiting locations around the world,” he said.
Salgado is passionate about astronomy along with the concept of presenting it with classical new music, so when he was initial asked to create a backdrop for ‘The Planets,’ he decided to produce a film to closely follow the songs, as opposed to merely having a slide display.
To begin, he collected photos by area probes, from telescopes on earth and animations based on scientific explorations. Then he listened closely to the new music to tell a visual story line in a logical order to match visually what was happening inside the new music. While he was working on the very first motion, he was researching the second and teaching himself video editing.
Following that initial task, Dr. Salgado prepared an astronomical version of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” by creating a virtual gallery and employing the paintings as portals into space. He has presented both programs since then with significant symphony orchestras in much more than 50 concert halls in thirteen countries. Last year, the 400t h anniversary of Galileo, his Science and Symphony orchestral films were named by the International Astronomical Union as being a Special Task with the International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009).
Not long ago, Dr. Salgado was inspired to view time-lapsed illustrations or photos in the night sky even though listening to “Spirit,” a song by musician/composer Tom Bailey, formerly with the British pop group Thompson Twins. Bailey was so pleased to understand how well his music suited Salgado’s project that he is now composing a work of four movements to accompany a film about the evening sky photographed from earth.
The biggest thrill for Salgado is starting using a blank page and interpreting what he is feeling and how the tunes conveys the visual. For instance, Holst’s Jupiter motion is very jolly and reminded him of becoming on the carousel using a circular motions, so he utilized photographs from a camera placed above Jupiter to demonstrate its satellites in orbit. Then he showedŁ hemisphere rotating, followed through the other hemisphere.
He is thrilled to hear individuals coming out from the concerts saying they didn’t know Jupiter had a lot of moons. Once the seed is planted, the next step is up towards the viewer to have an astronomy book, pay a visit to a planetarium, and watch TV documentaries.
