Launch Sequence [13'] - 2014

violin solo with film

Music for the film Le Voyage dans la Lune by Georges Méliès.

Launched into outer space 8 January 2024 on a trajectory to the moon (yes, the actual moon!) aboard Astrobotic’s Peregrine Lander as part of the MoonArk Project at Carnegie Mellon University.

Commissioned by violinist Christin Danchi as part of her "Fiddling with Film" project. Premiered May 4, 2014 at the Mellon Institute, Pittsburgh, PA.

When Georges Méliès created his silent film "A Trip to the Moon" in 1902, the premise of actually going to the moon was very much a dream of science fiction. Viewing this film over a hundred years later, then, our twenty-first-century eyes will witness several unrealistic and almost comical scenes where physics as we know it is thrown out the window (or perhaps hurled into outer space). In the same way that the travelers in the film explore the unfamiliar, I hope that the music of Launch Sequence will send the listener on a musical journey to the unknown...and back.