Boldly go where few orchestras have gone before! Join the NSO in collaboration with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for a celebration of NASA’s 60th anniversary. The NSO will perform music inspired by space—both fact and fiction—ranging from the theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey—Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra—to music from Carl Sagan’s Golden Record and more. Projections of photos and video, ranging from the International Space Station to the Hubble Space Telescope, examine our planet and beyond through the six decades since NASA’s inception, including special visuals by NASA TV, Taschen Books, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, producer Duncan Copp, and more.

Another highlight of the program is the world premiere of “NASA at 60”, a new work co-commissioned from the Emmy®, Golden Globe, Grammy® and Academy Award®-winning composer Michael Giacchino (Star Trek trilogy, Star Wars: Rogue One, and numerous Pixar films). Throughout the program, actor John Cho (Sulu in Star Trek series), novelist and screenwriter Nick Sagan (son of astronomer Carl Sagan), singer-songwriter Grace Potter, progressive rock band Coheed and Cambria, and singer-songwriter and composer will.i.am (also front man of Black Eyed Peas) make special appearances.