Composer Simon Lacey points me to his new music video, The Thought of Floating In Space with Jack Liebeck on solo violin. It combines marvelous views of earth taken from the International Space Station with gorgeous music.
The work is part of Lacey’s project A Quarter Of A Million Miles, which was inspired by Michael Collins’ famous book Carrying The Fire in which Collins described his role as the Command Module pilot during the Apollo 11 mission.
Collins’ poetic and eloquent account conveys the infinity and beauty of space and tells the story of humans pushing themselves up to (and possibly beyond) what was thought possible. The style and sound of the music is an attempt to evoke this story – melodic classical influences combined with a modern, cinematic production, half of the pieces featuring a classical soprano and the others having a solo violin at the forefront. Real instruments are combined with sound effects, atmospheres, synths and snatches of speech from the Apollo mission to give the pieces a unique flavour.
The status of the album:
The first recording sessions for A Quarter Of A Million Miles took place in London in December 2012 with some very exciting and talented collaborators and the album is scheduled to be completed in 2013. The soprano parts are sung by classical chart topper and Classical Brit nominee Natasha Marsh and the violin solos were performed by Jack Liebeck, who was recently featured on the soundtracks to the films Jane Eyre and Anna Karenina and was a Classical Brit winner in 2010 for Young British Classical Performer.