I’m headed for the Johnson Space Center in Houston this week to deliver a series of talks and workshops on Music and Space. Because, as you already know, music is connected to everything.

My main talk “Music and Space” explores those connections.

Most of us have never gone into space and never will. So our experience with space is bound up in our imagination and fueled by the arts. What is it like to be weightless, to leave the familiar sounds of earth, to travel at incredible speeds and see Earth from afar? The Hubble Telescope sends incredible images, but it takes music to add the emotional drama. Let’s explore that music, from the great classics to today’s film scores.

Music and space also share common ground in the quadrivium, so I will give another talk on how music and astronomy are linked in the Liberal Arts.

The ancient Greeks identified astronomy, music, geometry and arithmetic (the quadrivium) as the foundation of learning. How did space and music become so important in the classical era 2,500 years ago? Did the Greeks and Romans understand music as we do? And why should it matter to us today? Explore this topic using the tools of classical learning.

I also get to talk about one of my favorite “hands-on” aspects of music: film scores. Films that deal with space have always placed great stock in music to convey the exotic sensations of leaving our planet—the bigness and power of space, being weightless, the astonishing colors and clarity of light.

So I will do a couple of workshops on how composers capture and convey those sensations to us convincingly. Students will be invited to help make some of those decisions and see the results.

As usual, when I’m faced with issues involving film scoring, I turn to my good friend Paul Cristo. I’m always impressed with Paul’s film scoring and compositional skills, and he has graciously provided me with many examples from his own works that will greatly enrich my presentation.