Andrea Gaudette

NCFO Science Festival Chorus Songs by Andrea Gaudette

Andrea Gaudette has been playing music professionally since age 14, when her first job carried the title "substitute organist" for her parish church. She holds a bachelor’s degree from New England Conservatory and a master’s in music education from The Boston Conservatory. Andrea has been teaching piano, theory, composition, voice, choir, instrumental ensembles and creative arts to children in a variety of settings since 1988. Andrea lives in Cambridge with her husband and 22-year-old daughter. They have been active in NCFO since 2006.

• Auroras (world premiere, 2010: Looking Up) – Cascades of voices mimic the shimmering northern lights ("Twisting turning ripples dance, pinwheel spinning light, cascades colors from the sky, Aurora Borealis.")
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• Brave Stars (written with school children, world premiere, 2019: One Whole Step) – The libretto, music, and piano sound effects for this mini-opera were created in a workshop for 2nd-4th graders held at the King Community School in Cambridge, directed by Andrea and Lydia Jane Graeff, co-sponsored by Boston Lyric Opera. The finale aria was composed in a workshop with Debbie Sullivan’s 3rd Grade music students at Graham and Parks School. NCFO chorus members Verity Gould and Ellen and Yifei Sun completed the music. Andrea then added orchestration to complete the piece. The opera's story was inspired by a fascinating field trip to the Harvard Smithsonian Observatory.
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• Galileo (world premiere, 2016: Giants of Science) – Andrea Gaudette guided her third grade students at the Haggerty School in Cambridge as they wrote this song honoring Italian astronomer, physicist, engineer, philosopher, and mathematician Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642). Galileo's public embrace of Copernicus's heliocentric model of the the solar system was judged to be heresy by the Roman Inquisition, and he spent the last nine years of his life under house arrest.
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• Invisible Colors (world premiere, 2015: A Little Light Music) – We can see the colors of the visible spectrum, but not shorter wavelengths (such as ultraviolet) or longer wavelengths (such as infrared).
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• Madame Marie Curie (world premiere) - Polish-born physicist and chemist Marie Curie (1867 - 1934) was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first person to win two. Element 96, Curium, is named in honor of her and her husband, Pierre (1859 - 1906).
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• Metamorphosis (world premiere, 2012: Lifetime) – The life story of the ladybug.
  [ performance audio / performance with slide show ]
• Mirror (world premiere, 2011: Many Voices) – Mirror neurons fire both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another. The functions of the mirror neuron system are uncertain, but it is speculated that the are involved in language acquisition, learning through imitation, empathy, theory of mind skills, and understanding the intentions of others. Some researchers believe that a deficiency in mirror neuron activity is associated with autism.
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• Mitosis (world premiere, 2012: Lifetime) – The cycle of cell division is broken into six phases. Errors during the process of mitosis create the mutations that facilitate evolution.
  [ performance audio / performance with slide show ]
• Noctilucence (world premiere, 2010: Looking Up) – A mysterious, tenuous cloud-like phenomenon in the upper atmosphere ("When sun falls, flash of tepid green, ghostly whispers glow in the western sky")
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• Pond Song (World première, 2013: H₂Oratorio and 2018: Web of Life) – A small change to the ecosystem makes a very large change to the chemistry and biology of natural waters. This song was inspired by a pond near Andrea Gaudette’s house in Maine that was invaded by a non-native species.
  [ 2018 performance audio / 2018 performance with slide show / demo ]
  [ 2013 performance audio / 2013 performance video / demo ]
• A Rainforest Opera (written with school children, world premiere, 2018: Web of Life) – Our rainforests are under assault from human development, with devastating consequences for the econsystems they contain. This drama set in a rainforest was written and performed by kids with guidance from Andrea and Lydia Jane Graeff of the Boston Lyric Opera.
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• Re-entry (additional lyrics by Richard S. Gaudette*, world premiere, 2019: One Whole Step) – Spacecraft returning from the moon encounters the Earth's atmosphere at nearly 25,000 miles per hour. Air friction increases the heat shield temperature to about 5000ºF. Without a light, strong heat shield that could dissipate heat by several mechanisms, Apollo missions wouldn't have been possible.
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• There's a Certain Flash of Light (world premiere, 2017 Singin' of the Rain) – An homage to Emily Dickinson and her poem "There's a Certain Slant of Light". A thunderstorm slowly arises and then rolls away. Spark, zap, flash, rumble, zap, crash!
  [ performance audio / performance with slide show / demo ]
• Trees (written with young school children, world premiere, 2019: One Whole Step) – Like David Haines, Andrea Gaudette works with young children, guiding them as they write songs about some aspect of their science curriculum. Inbal Alon's ESL class from the Graham & Parks School makes a guest appearance at One Whole Step for Man.
  [ performance audio / performance with slide show ]​
• Water Bear (world premiere, 2018: Web of Life) – Tardigrades can withstand conditions that would terminally freeze, roast, crush, suffocate, dehydrate, irradiate and starve any other animal.
  [ performance audio / performance with slide show / demo ]​
• Water Drops (world première, 2013: H₂Oratorio) – This lullaby captures the magic of water condensation through the eyes of a child.
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• Water March (world première, 2013: H₂Oratorio and 2017: Singin' of the Rain) – Water is necessary for life, but global warming is raising sea level and causing more intense storms, with catastrophic consequences for island people.
  [ 2017 performance audio / 2017 performance with slide show / demo ]
  [ 2013 performance audio / 2013 performance video / demo ]
• Winter (world premiere, 2012: Lifetime) – Not all arctic and temperate species can survive the cold weather, but all have evolved ways for their DNA to do so.
  [ performance audio / performance with slide show ]

*Richard worked on the Apollo project in the 60's with the aerothermochemistry group in the Boeing space division, investigating the return module heat shield integrity upon reentry in earth's atmosphere. He subsequently worked locally at Polaroid as a principal chemical engineer. At 17, he began his second profession as a keyboardist (piano, organ, and harpsichord) at many churches, currently substituting in Marin County, California.