Bruce Lazarus
NCFO Science Festival Chorus Songs by Bruce Lazarus
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Composer Bruce Lazarus's music includes pieces for piano, solo voice, |
- Annie Jump Cannon: Celestial Pioneer (world premiere, 2016: Giants of Science) – American astronomer Annie Jump Cannon's (1863 - 1941) cataloging work was instrumental in the development of contemporary stellar classification. With Edward C. Pickering, she is credited with the creation of the Harvard Classification Scheme, which was the first serious attempt to organize and classify stars based on their temperatures. She was nearly deaf throughout her career.
[performance audio / performance video / demo] - Between Points A and B (2010: Looking Up and 2019: One Whole Step for Man) – It's hard to comprehend how big space is and how profound an impediment to space travel its size is.
[2019 performance audio / 2019 performance with slide show / demo]
[2010 performance audio] - Clouds (new revision for NCFO, 2013: H2Oratorio) – A celebration of the diverse appearance and behavior of clouds.
[performance audio / performance video / demo] - The Dizzy Song (world premiere, 2020: Vision) –
[demo] - Global Shuffle (world premiere, 2017: Singin' of the Rain) – As habitats shift toward the poles and to higher elevations in response to global warming, the animals that inhabit them must migrate, adapt or perish. Humans are no exception.
[performance audio / performance with slide show / demo] - How Beautiful is the Rain (world premiere, 2017: Singin' of the Rain) – A lovely setting of a lovely poem by local versifier Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
[performance audio / performance with slide show / demo] - Jane with the Chimps (world premiere, 2016: Giants of Science) – British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist Jane Morris Goodall (1934 - ) is considered to be the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees. One of cartoonist Gary Larson's more famous Far Side cartoons shows two chimpanzees grooming. One finds a blonde human hair on the other and inquires, "Conducting a little more 'research' with that Jane Goodall tramp?" Goodall liked the cartoon, and all profits from sales of a shirt featuring this cartoon go to the Jane Goodall Institute.
[performance audio / performance video / demo] - LUCA (world premiere, 2018: Web of Life) – Life on Earth may have begun several times, and it has evolved down numerous dead-end paths. But every species alive today is ultimately descended from a single species that lived 3.5 to 3.7 billion years ago: the last universal common ancestor.
[performance audio / performance with slide show / demo] - Moondust Footprint (lyrics by Bobbi Katz*, world premiere, 2019: One Whole Step for Man) – Most of us who were around in 1969 can remember exactly where we were and how we felt when Apollo 11 brought the first humans to the surface of the Moon.
[performance audio / performance with slide show / demo] - Our World (2010: Looking Up) – a paean to our home planet.
[performance audio] - Regarding Eclipses (lyrics by Bobbi Katz* and David Bass, world premiere, 2010: Looking Up) – six songs, commissioned by Andy Adler and Ann Braude for the 2010 NCFO Festival Chorus, exploring lunar and solar eclipses: Performance audios:
Syzygy 1
Sun and Moon
Lunar Eclipse
Day Turns to Night
Solar Eclipse
Syzygy 2 - ROY G BIV (world premiere, 2015: A Little Light Music) – Isaac Newton divided the visible spectrum into seven colors, identifiable by this acronym. Newton chose the number seven based on a mystical belief that the number of colors should match the number of notes in a musical scale, the number of days in the week, and the number of known objects in the solar system.
[Broad performance audio / Peabody performance audio / performance video / demo] - Sally Ride (world premiere, 2019: One Whole Step for Man) – Sally Ride was not only the first female American astronaut, she is still the youngest American ever to have traveled to space (at age 32) and the first known LGBTQ astronaut.
[performance audio / performance with slide show / demo] - Sea Fever (World première, 2013: H2Oratorio) – Like moths of a flame, humans are drawn to and mesmerized by the incomprehensable vastness of the oceans. A sea shanty setting of the famous poem by John Masefield.
[performance audio / performance video / demo] - Star Songs (selections, 2010: Looking Up) – two passages from the writings of Carl Sagan, set for SAB chorus, harp, flute and cello. Performance audios:
An Immensity of Others
...And Made of Diamond. - That's How Things are Seen (world premiere, 2020: Vision) –
[demo] - A Tower in Space (lyrics by Bruce Lazarus and David Bass, 2011: Many Voices) – Telstar 1 was the one of the first objects launched into Earth orbit, and the first active communication satellite, i.e., one that could receive signals from a ground transmitter, amplify them, and retransmit them to a ground receiver. It was the first satellite to relay telephone, fax, and television transmissions. Telstar 1 operated for only a few months before its transistors were damaged by the Van Allen radiation belt, which had been energized by upper atmosphere testing of nuclear weapons.
[performance audio / performance video]
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*Author and lyricist Bobbi Katz once told Contemporary Authors: "I write for |
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