Kepler:Harmony of the Worlds

A musical celebration inspired by the life and work of Johannes Kepler

- astronomer, mathematician, astrologer and visionary.

    

Set in late 16th/early 17th century Europe, an era of superstition, ignorance, plague and religious tyranny, the brilliant young Kepler, part-dreamer, part-explorer, emerges from a miserable and sickly childhood in obsessive pursuit of an idea which would eventually change mankind’s concept of the heavens and lay the foundations of modern astronomy.

 

A daring and unusual interpretation in music and song, it tells of one man’s lifelong search for Truth and Order in the Cosmos, a quest to fathom the basic mechanism of the universe and the harmonies of nature, as if Johannes wished to see into the very mind of the creator!

 

It is the story of triumph-over-adversity, a life and career hampered by personal and financial hardships against a backdrop of wars and religious controversy, beginning with early family life – a fascination with numbers and astrology; coming-of-age; spiritual conflict; two marriages; a riotous and yet pivotal collaboration with the great Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (although surprisingly, largely ignored by Galileo, pioneer of the telescope) - to the renowned and aging Imperial Mathematician, still immersed in relentless cosmic exploration, having to defend his own mother in a witch trial!

 

The extraordinary life of this reckless genius and his immortal achievements, attained as much via the comic-tragic twists and turns of fate as through his own singular determination, are here, musically and dramatically portrayed.