BIG
BANG
Project Research & Creation
BIG BANG is a musical work for multimedia with live musical ensemble, narrator and video projections, written and
directed by composer/performer Patrick
Grant.
This work results from a collaboration between the composer and astronomer
Charles Liu
with input from physicist Brian
Schwartz.
These pages document the creation and resultant
performance of this piece.
The piece tells the story of the creation of our Universe as best as we understand it today. It is narrated by a central character known as The Astronomer. This role was performed by Charles Liu and like all astronomers do, in order to understand what happened at the beginning, he "runs the film in reverse," that is, the story starts out in our present day and moves backwards to, quite literally, the creation of Time.
Video projections of stellar bodies, scientific diagrams and art add a visual component to the work.
BIG BANG was premiered at the CUNY Graduate Center in NYC on May 15, 2006 and was part of The 26th International Colloquium on Group Theoretical Methods in Physics on June 27, 2006 also at CUNY.
This
multimedia musical work will eventually be workshopped to expand the music, text and visuals
into an evening length live performance.
More info at www.strangemusic.com
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1.
Initial Notes with Astronomer Charles Liu
2. Conversation with Physicist Brian Schwartz
3. Conversation with Astronomer Charles Liu
==========================================
The
Powers of Ten
Big Bang
Timeline (Text)
Big
Bang Timeline (Graphical)
Big
Bang and the Fundamental Forces
"Eureka"
- a Cosmological Essay by E. A. Poe
==========================================
Creation
of the Narrative
BIG
BANG SCRIPT Version 1.0
==========================================
==========================================
VIDEO from mAY 21, 2006
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This
work was commissioned by the CUNY Graduate Center Science & the Arts performance
series, an initiative of the Science Outreach Series, presenting programs in theatre,
art, music, and dance that bridge the worlds of art and science. Please refer
to the reservation number listed with the event. Supported in part by the National
Science Foundation and the Lounsbery Foundation. Dr. Liu appears through the American Museum of natural History. Multimedia images by Patrick grant and courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope.
All events are held at
The Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave (at 34th Street)
For further information
on Science & the Arts please contact:
Brian Schwartz, Director, Science
and the Arts, (212) 817-7521, bschwartz@gc.cuny.edu
Adrienne Klein, Co-Director,
Science and the Arts, (212) 817-7522, aklein@gc.cuny.edu
Web site: http://web.gc.cuny.edu/sciart/