Music from Outer Space

«Imagine that the Nikolaisaal in Potsdam has received a message from aliens – all geometric shapes that are surely a musical message. Why else would they have contacted the Nikolaisaal?» With this narrative, music teacher Luka Born invited schools in the Potsdam area to formulate interstellar musical messages – with the help of an app that allows graphic scores to be drawn on tablets. Each shape represents an instrument – pointed triangles the violins, soft rectangles the cellos and flowing lines the flutes. The project is based on the desire and aim to get children and young people interested in orchestral music. Hauke Berheide, award-winning composer, and Michael Dühn, Program Director of the Nikolaisaal in Potsdam, pondered how this could be achieved in autumn 2022. Dühn suggested that young people should actively interact with professional orchestras and musicians. They should formulate musical messages using simple symbols that musicians can interpret professionally. Berheide had the idea for scores with geometric shapes. He drew a kaleidoscope of colors and lines for an avant-garde orchestra.

Berheide and Dühn turned to sound artist Felipe Sanchez Luna, co-founder of the Berlin studio kling klang klong. They commissioned him to realize their vision of an app that could produce graphic scores on tablets. Dühn requested: «The geometric figures must also sound.» Berheide then recorded 40 sound textures with the Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra, which Luna integrated into his so-called Luna simulator. This enables intuitive, creative musical compositions. Users can create unique soundscapes by adjusting and positioning various shapes on a grid of lines. The size and orientation of the shapes control the volume and duration, while the choice of color determines the sound. The simulator offers rotation and deletion functions as well as a setting for the overall duration of the composition – a flexible platform for experimental sound design that opens up a playful approach to music production for beginners and experienced musicians alike.

At the same time, Berheide engaged six students from the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media. With them, he wanted to transform the graphic scores and the corresponding melodies into classical orchestral scores.

Susanne Rendle, class and music teacher at the Waldorf School Werder/Havel, and her colleague Katrin Peters applied with their sixth and seventh classes. «My sixth grade class had just performed the opera Orpheus and Eurydice. This project was an excellent change and addition. Working with normal sheet music would have been easier for me personally, but we were attracted by the modern technology and the encounter with a professional symphony orchestra,» recalls Rendle.

In a first workshop with initiators and participants, the students saw and heard the message from outer space and received instructions on how to operate the interactive Luna simulator. In a second workshop, the students composed melodies to match the soundscapes they created with the Luna simulator. They drew the melodies with simple lines. The musicians helped them with this. Luka Born recalls: «Just getting to see a bassoon was a revelation for some of them. During the workshops in which the melodies were created, there was a noticeably lively atmosphere. It was as if the creative waves were just flying through the room.» The workshops each resulted in two scores – one for the harmonic texture and a second for the melody.

All that was missing now were the answers from the aliens. This was Luna's part again. He fed an AI with the graphic scores from his Luna simulator and the recorded melodies of the musicians. He indicated that these were supposed to be earthly messages to aliens living on the exoplanet K2-18b and that he was asking for a response from them.

Berheide and the music students transformed the students' and AI's graphic compositions into classical orchestral scores.

The result was 13 messages – seven from outer space, six from students. They ranged from a humorous greeting for aliens to musical continental introductions, mixed news items in a feuilleton style and depictions of the four seasons. The sixth grade of the Werder Waldorf School described the location of their school next to a train station and the seventh grade described human existence from birth to death.

They premiered this symphony in the Nikolaisaal shortly before the 2023 summer vacation. A full house and an enthusiastic audience were the reward for the Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra, their young co-composers and everyone else involved.

The Nikolaisaal wants to further expand this form of musical and interstellar communication and include it in its program planning for the coming years. The aim is to introduce not only students but also trainees to the world of music and composition – without any previous musical knowledge, but with a portion of curiosity about what lies beyond our atmosphere.