When you think of the arts, you feel warm and fuzzy.
Arts appeal to the senses, a feast for the eyes and ears, touching you in intangible ways. When you’re creating it, you can change a note here, a brushstroke there, or use a punchier word, and it will come out all the better for it.
But in math and science, all you have are facts. Cold, hard, immutable facts.
But that’s not how astronomer Jose Francisco Salgado sees the northern lights, or lunar tides, or the sun. And he doesn’t want you to see them that way, either.
Salgado and his colleagues at the KV265 Project – a nod to the tune we know as “twinkle twinkle little star,” a part of the twelve variations on the French folk song "Ah! vous dirai-je, maman" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – take the facts of science and combine them with music, photos and videos, and the power of the written word to bring these naturally occurring phenomena, such as the planets, the lunar tides, and the sun, to create stunning lessons on science.
He’s trying to get people’s attention.
“Once you get people’s attention, you can actually teach them some science, and you can tell them really interesting things about what they’re seeing,” Salgado said during a phone interview from his home in Nashville. “That will plant that seed of curiosity, and they will say, ‘I went to this concert, and I saw these objects, they were fascinating, I didn’t even know some of these phenomena actually occur. Now I want to learn more about that.’ ”
To do that, Salgado and his team will research the subject, select the music and the visuals, whether they come from NASA or Salgado takes the photos himself, and writes the accompanying material in an artistic way.
“That is the idea. To present science in a very non-intimidating way, married to music and the visual arts, and plant that seed of curiosity,” he said.
In that sense, he said, you wouldn’t be wrong to call science an art form.
“By definition, that’s what art is; you’re being creative, you’re creating artwork out of nothing,” Salgado said.
Salgado will bring his production Over the Beautiful Blue Planet and Legend of the Northern Lights to the Toledo Museum of Art Peristyle on Nov. 11. While the Beautiful Blue Planet uses the famous Blue Danube Waltz by Johann Strauss, the Northern Lights was composed by Christopher Theofanidis.
“There are many legends, cultural legends, around the world to explain what the Northern lights are, so this story is a grandfather telling his grandchild a story from his family,” he said.
Because the Northern Lights can be seen from the ground and from space, Salgado shot the videos and photos himself in Northern Canada and added time-lapse photography from the International Space Station.
“Understanding that science explains what the northern lights are, so we show the scientific visualizations,” Salgado said. “We show videos of the winter landscape and the mountains and a little bit of the fauna. Then we show this mysterious character, one of the protagonists of this story, making reference to a natural phenomenon that occurs on our planet.”
Salgado says putting a production together is the opposite from what a composer for a film score goes through.
“It’s like a soundtrack in reverse. The film composer gets the final cut of the film and then he composes the music to fit the film. I get music that has been composed and I make a science film to fit the music” he said. “And that way when the film is projected while the orchestra performs, they augment each other, and the concert performance is augmented with the visuals.”
When it comes to choosing a topic for a production, Salgado said there are certain requisites he follows: visually appealing and not something that we see on a daily basis.
“Like the beautiful images from the Hubble Space Telescope or the lunar tides” he said. “Most locations around the planet, they go through lunar tides, but not as extreme as in particular places like Nova Scotia, Canada.”
Aside from NASA images, he has used his own photography, shooting the night sky, the Milky Way, the sky at night with starlight and moonlight, and the northern lights from multiple locations.
These projects have led not only to a better understanding of science for us but also to a heap of awards for Salgado and his nonprofit organization. He says the concerts have been staged more than 235 times across the nation, Canada, and the rest of the world, including Spain, Italy, Czech Republic, Chile. Adding in the lectures he has given at museums, libraries, and universities, he says more than 465,000 people have seen the films.
Toledo gets its chance on Nov. 11 at 7 p.m at the Toledo Museum of Art Peristyle, 2445 Monroe Street. tickets are from $10 to $25. Visit toledosymphony.com or call 419-246-8000. Salgado said there will be a performance for children earlier in the day.
As always, please be aware of the venue’s coronavirus protocols.
Coming Up: Toledo Museum of Art Peristyle: Epic Journeys Friday, 8 p.m. 2445 Monroe St.. Kinan Azmeh, clarinet Vinay Parameswaran, conductor. Errollyn Wallen: Mighty River, Kareem Roustom: Adrift on the Wine-dark Sea, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade. Tickets $10 to $52. Visit toledosymphony.com or call
Original Sub Shop & Deli, 402 Broadway St. Friday, 7 p.m. James VanDeuson and the Rolling Rust. $15. Over Yonder Concert House. Visit overyonderconcerthouse.com.
Moore Musical Arts Center, Kobacker Hall 1031 State University, Friday, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, 3 p.m. Bowling Green Opera Theater: Opera Scenes. Tickets $8. BSGU students free with ID. Student recitals: Bryan Concert Hall, Friday, 8 p.m. student recitals: Brenna Smith, trumpet. Saturday, Robert Dunham, bassoon. Free. Visit bgsu.edu.
Maumee Indoor Theatre, 601 Conant St., Maumee Fri, 7:30 An Evening of Doo Wop, Pop & Soul at Maumee Indoor Theatre, 601 Conant St, Maumee, OH 43537, Maumee. $25 at door. Call 248-921-7000 for more information or visit maumeeindoor.com.
Genesis Village 2429 S. Reynolds Rd. Wednesday, 6 p.m. "Veterans Day" Concert Celebration with the Genoa American Legion Band. Free 419-720-1286, genesisvillage.org
Ritz Theatre, The National Theatre at the Ritz, 30 S. Washington St., Tiffin, Ohio, Friday, 7:30 pm. Friday Night Live: J. Scott Franklin, Beth Mattia & Nate McMaster, and CJTK Trio tickets from $10 to $15.
First Published November 4, 2021, 12:00 p.m.
