{"id":17277,"date":"2023-07-24T22:26:58","date_gmt":"2023-07-24T14:26:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/musical-astronauts-will-bring-a-show-thats-completely-out-of-this-world-to-seattle\/"},"modified":"2023-07-24T22:26:58","modified_gmt":"2023-07-24T14:26:58","slug":"musical-astronauts-will-bring-a-show-thats-completely-out-of-this-world-to-seattle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/musical-astronauts-will-bring-a-show-thats-completely-out-of-this-world-to-seattle\/","title":{"rendered":"Musical astronauts will bring a show that\u2019s completely out of this world to Seattle"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full-width\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" height=\"434\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/230723-bandella-630x434.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-782818\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/230723-bandella-630x434.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/230723-bandella-1260x868.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/230723-bandella-768x529.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/230723-bandella-1536x1059.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/230723-bandella.jpg 1570w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" class=\"wp-element-caption\">Several astronauts play in Bandella, a \u201cworld acoustic\u201d band that\u2019ll be in Seattle this week. (Bandella Photo) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Astronauts have been making music in orbit for almost 60 years, but at least some of the members of a band called Bandella prefer to think of themselves as musicians who just happened to become astronauts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were musicians before we got into the astronaut corps,\u201d one of the band\u2019s founders, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, told GeekWire.<\/p>\n<p>Bandella\u2019s Seattle concerts, set for Saturday at the Museum of Flight, won\u2019t be your typical summer music tour. The event will feature some space-themed tunes \u2014 including David Bowie\u2019s \u201cSpace Oddity,\u201d which went viral when Hadfield recorded a tribute performance on the International Space Station in 2013. There\u2019ll also be a Q&amp;A session during which the musicians recount their experiences in space.<\/p>\n<p>Hadfield said it\u2019s only natural that astronauts bring music with them when they go into orbit. \u201cWe\u2019re just people, multifaceted,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd when you\u2019re a long way from home, you know, you need art and music in amongst all the busyness.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also natural for astronauts to share their out-of-this-world experiences via the creative channels that they\u2019ve developed throughout their lives.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of it goes back to when you have been so incredibly lucky to have had the experiences that the members of the band have had. What do you do with those experiences? How do you explain it, and make it part of your own life, and not just a weird perturbation?\u201d Hadfield said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Space Oddity\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pDyl6I6ESSw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Those who have seen their home planet from space \u2014 including Amazon\u2019s billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos \u2014 sometimes talk about a heightened sense of Earth\u2019s beauty and fragility that\u2019s commonly called the Overview Effect. But Hadfield thinks the Overview Effect is \u201cway too confining a definition of what it actually means to us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow are you going to share it with other people?\u201d he asked. \u201cEverybody in the band has a different answer to that question, but that\u2019ll be one of the things, I think, that really makes this performance special.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bandella got its start 20 years ago, when Hadfield was going through training at Russia\u2019s Star City complex for future space station missions. Back then, astronauts from NASA as well as the Canadian and European space agencies liked to hang out at an impromptu bar in the basement of one of their housing units. <\/p>\n<p>One night, Hadfield worked up a jam session with Micki Pettit, the wife of NASA astronaut Don Pettit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMicki has been a musician and a performer and a disc jockey and a real free spirit her whole life. She\u2019s got a really big, strong torch-song voice. But she also is one of those people who is just an instinctive and beautiful harmony singer,\u201d Hadfield said.<\/p>\n<p>Other musically minded astronauts soon joined the group, including:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Cady Coleman<\/strong>, who had her own turn in the orbital music spotlight when she performed history\u2019s first orbit-to-ground flute duet with Jethro Tull front man Ian Anderson in 2011.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Steve Robinson<\/strong>, who took on a spacewalk to repair the shuttle Discovery in 2005. \u201cAnything with strings, he can play beautifully,\u201d Hadfield said.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Dan Burbank<\/strong>, who participated in two space station assembly missions (in 2000 and 2006) and spent more than five months aboard the station as an expedition crew member in 2011-2012. \u201cHe\u2019s like an Art Garfunkel kind of guy with that beautiful ability to just make the music fuller with harmonies and occasionally take the lead. And he is a really deft guitar player and bass player as well,\u201d Hadfield said.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ken Cockrell<\/strong>, a retired astronaut who\u2019ll be playing the keyboard for the Seattle concerts. \u201cHe commanded the space shuttle [for missions in 1996, 2001 and 2002] and was chief astronaut [in 1997-1998], but he\u2019s a keyboards player,\u201d Hadfield said.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cEverybody\u2019s either an experienced spaceflier or, in Micki\u2019s case, the spouse of an experienced spaceflier,\u201d Hadfield said. \u201cSo it\u2019s joyful and fun, and there\u2019s a real reunion feel to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hadfield said it\u2019s not easy to get the band together for their gigs. \u201cYou can imagine \u2014 I mean, Steve Robinson is a tenured professor working on a huge number of projects at UC-Davis. Micki\u2019s husband is preparing for a spaceflight right now,\u201d he said. \u201cI help run several companies and have three television shows in pre-production, and I\u2019m writing my sixth book. And Cady is just finishing up her book.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This week\u2019s gig at the Museum of Flight will mark the first time that Bandella has performed in Seattle.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPart of the reason to play there, obviously, is the venue,\u201d Hadfield said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just a random place. When you look at the huge amount of aerospace industry activity in the Seattle area \u2014 with Boeing and SpaceX and what\u2019s going on with Blue Origin and all the other companies \u2014 there\u2019s a lot of interest up there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Not every song that Bandella performs is about outer space, but one of Hadfield\u2019s favorites \u2014 \u201cI.S.S.: Is Somebody Singing\u201d \u2014 celebrates the International Space Station. And \u201cSpace Oddity\u201d is sure to be on the playlist. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople expect it,\u201d Hadfield said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Chris Hadfield and Barenaked Ladies | I.S.S. (Is Somebody Singing)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AvAnfi8WpVE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<p>At the same time that Bandella is bringing the space experience down to Earth through their music, spacefliers are continuing to bring music with them to the final frontier. In 2021, for example, Seattle-area engineer Chris Sembroski strummed a ukulele aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule for a video streamed from orbit.<\/p>\n<p>For his part, Hadfield can\u2019t wait for musical performances to reach even farther frontiers. He noted that astronauts are due to start a series of Artemis missions to the lunar surface in the mid-2020s.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are switching now from exploration to settlement, sort of like Antarctica between 1910 and, say, the 1950s or \u201960s,\u201d he said. \u201cOnce we start having a settlement somewhere in a very new environment, we\u2019re going to bring with us a subset of instruments and a subset of culture including music, and then it\u2019s going to evolve in that new place.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps musicians on the moon or on Mars will develop their own distinctive styles, just as Celtic music from Ireland, Scotland and England gave birth to bluegrass in America. \u201cThat\u2019ll be a really interesting next step,\u201d Hadfield said. \u201cImagine when you are doing a tour, it\u2019s no longer just a world tour, you know? <em>Which<\/em> world? It sounds crazy, but you know, it\u2019s coming faster than everybody thinks.\u201d <\/p>\n<p><em>Check the Museum of Flight\u2019s website for tickets to Bandella\u2019s concerts, which are set for 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. Saturday. But don\u2019t delay: The 6:30 show is already sold out.<\/em><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Several astronauts play in Bandella, a \u201cworld acoustic\u201d band that\u2019ll be in Seattle this week. (Bandella Photo) Astronauts have been making music in orbit for almost 60 years, but at least some of the members of a band called Bandella prefer to think of themselves as musicians who just happened to become astronauts. \u201cWe were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1668,4546,4450,4547],"class_list":["post-17277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-astronauts","tag-bandella","tag-museum-of-flight","tag-music"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17277"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17277\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}