Ravinia 2024 Issue 3

SEVEN YEARS AGO, while perusing astronomy arti- cles online, Amanda Lee Falkenberg stumbled across a clickbait-worthy headline, “Ten of the Weirdest Moons of Our Solar System.” The realization that other planets have moons of their own launched her into an artistic frenzy of discovery and inspiration—and she quickly came to her own conclusion: “These moons aren’t weird at all. These are wonderful moons! So I decided to put them in music.” Falkenberg began a three-month-long period of re- search. “I was driven by the aesthetics of their terrain,” she says. “I absolutely felt like a film director during a casting call, but instead of Hollywood actors, I was short-listing moons. I wanted them to have different characteristics, so I could make sure each movement has a unique stamp and tone.” The seven satellites represented in The Moons Sym- phonic Suite , according to performance order, are Io, Europa, Titan, Enceladus, Miranda, Ganymede, and our moon. Here’s a primer about each one. Io. This Jupiter moon could’ve been named Vulcan. Peppered with hundreds of vents, the most volcanically active body in our solar system hurls lava dozens of miles above its surface. Europa. Another moon of Jupiter, smooth Europa pro- vides the water to Io’s fire. With a core made primarily of silicate rock, Europa is covered entirely by a saltwater ocean, topped with an icy crust. Titan. Saturn’s largest satellite (even bigger than planet Mercury) has a thick atmosphere and entire system of clouds, rain, rivers, seas, and ice. But it’s not a water table—Titan’s full of liquid hydrocarbons, including methane. Enceladus. Another of Saturn’s progeny, this icy moon is the Old Faithful of our solar system, thanks to many geysers spewing water vapor and ice from an under- world ocean. Miranda. Not discovered until 1948 by Dutch-American astronomer Gerard Kuiper, this moon of Uranus has a highly varied topography, including a 20-kilometer-high cliff that scientists believe is the biggest in the solar system. Ganymede. Observed by Galileo in 1610, along with Io and Europa in a discovery that upended human un- derstanding of the firmament, this Jupiter moon is the biggest in the solar system. Ganymede is also the only satellite known to have its own magnetic field. Earth’s Moon. This past February, the US celebrated its first lunar landing since 1972’s Apollo 17 mission. When the unmanned Odysseus touched down in Malapert Crater, near the moon’s South Pole, it fittingly carried with it a digital version of the sheet music for The Moons Symphony .  Marin Alsop led the London Symphony in the recording sessions for The Moons Symphony , having embraced interdisciplinary works for much of her career. She revisits the music in its new concert suite edition at Ravinia on July 26. From left: Moons collaborators Dr. Ashley Davies, composer Amanda Lee Falkenberg, and Drs. Linda and Tom Spilker While topics such as astronomy and ecology clearly appeal to her, it’s fair to say she initially came to The Moons as a musi- cian and a poet. She remembers the induction clearly. “In 2017, I was in between film projects,” Falkenberg recalls. “John Williams famously says, when he’s in between films, he loves to do concert music. So, what do I love? I thought, ‘Well, I love the moon! So, okay, I’m going to write this piano concer- to, and it’ll be an abstract work, about ten minutes long.’ I came up with a title, Crossing at the Crescent Moon . Of course, being in Dubai, there’s crescent moons everywhere.” She was about three-quarters done writing when she took a break. “Oh, I’m going to step out of my studio, relax, have a cup of tea, and maybe go do some research on ancient symbol- ism and historical significance of the moon,” she recalls. Falkenberg soon felt gob-smacked—in the best way—by the information that beamed from her iPad: She quickly learned that, while the inner terrestrial planets of our solar system have just three moons between them (zero for Mercury and Venus, two for Mars, and, of course, one for Earth), the gas giants col- lectively own a couple hundred natural satellites within their powerful orbits. Like the planets they encircle, these outer moons are mostly named after figures in Greco-Roman mythology—Ganymede, Europa, Io, Titan, Enceladus—although Shakespeare was the source for Miranda and several other of Uranus’s moons. (That RAVINIAMAGAZINE • JULY 22 – AUGUST 4, 2024 14 BENJAMINEALOVEGA(BOTHPHOTOS)