$75.00
Description
“The cosmos is also within us. We are star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.”
- Dr. Carl Sagan, 20th astronomer and science educator.
When a very small star dies, it does not have enough density to cohere anymore and it drifts apart, perhaps contributing to a stellar nebula and aiding in the creation of new stars. When a very large star dies, its mass continually collapses into its center in a cascading effect compounded by gravity in which nothing—not even light itself—can escape: A black hole. But, if the star’s size is just right—not too big, not too small—the star begins to collapse in on itself, with lighter elements fusing together inside the star’s core to make heavier ones like oxygen, iron, nickel and more. When the core is no longer able to handle the energy bursting with in it, the star explodes and seeds these new elements across space. We call this burst of energy a supernova and, when you look around you at the diversity of the materials around us and inside us, we have the stars to thank for them. Whether it’s the calcium in our bones, the oxygen in our lungs, the carbon found in life all across the planet, those heavier elements were forged in the cores of stars billions of years ago. To me, there is something deeply beautiful about that. It connects us to the stars, life, and the world around us in a deeply material way. We are all built of the same component parts and woven from the same stellar thread.
This lush and lyrical level 2 explores these beautiful cosmic concepts and sets them for band.
Recording (premiered by the Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute Senior Concert Band; Mr. Daniel Austin, conductor)
