Apollo 13 Astronauts' Soundtrack

     Launched from the Kennedy Space Center April 11, 1970 Apollo13 was meant to land on the moon but suffered damages enroute that made simply returning to Earth a harrowing mission.

     Last night April 21, 2015 I attended a rehearsal in Elsah, Illinois. For the past few years since my return to the St. Louis area it has been my honor to be hired for many seasonal concerts and pit orchestra gigs for musicals as a violinist at Principia College.

     While most of our concerts are recorded I wasn't expecting the orchestra to make a recording during a rehearsal where many of us were seeing the music for the first time. But we did and it was exciting to be part of it.

     The astronauts from the Apollo 13 mission recently visited the Principia College campus. I don't have the full background of the story but the astronauts requested the Principia College Orchestra to record a medley from the motion picture soundtrack for them to use as a soundtrack to their slideshow.

     The recording we made that night premiered at one of the astronauts' events later the same week at the University of Arkansas in Fayetville, Arkansas for an audience of over 2,500.

     The composer of the soundtrack to the motion picture Apollo 13 was the late James Horner. James Horner has long been one of my favorites since I became familiar with his work in the 1980s. I've always been impressed with his melodic sensibility.

     Some of my other favorite modern film scoring composers include Jerry Goldsmith, Hans Zimmer, Mark Isham, Graeme Revell, Randy Newman, Alan Silvestri, Bruce Rowland, Bruce Broughton, Gabriel Yared, Danny Elfman, Basil Poledouris, the man behind the music of many popular new films and shows, Bear McCreary, and of course the one who's music is likely best known, John Williams.

To hear what we recorded play the mp3 below.