A whale of a piece
Mendelssohn’s Hebrides adapted to highlight biodiversity, plus more musical scientists and interesting links
When I’m not writing about science or putting together newsletters, I play violin in amateur orchestras. One of my favourite pieces to play (and listen to) is Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture, so when I saw that it had been adapted to raise awareness for biodiversity, I knew I had to write about it!
“Hebrides Redacted” follows the population of the North Atlantic humpback whale from the time when Mendelssohn composed his piece until the year 2100. The Hebrides are one of the natural habitats of this whale, and populations drastically reduced in the early 20th century due to excessive whaling.
🐋 To find out more about the piece, read my article on Forbes, or watch the video below.
🎵 Music by MusiSci
“MusiSci” are people involved in both music and science. I used to have a separate newsletter just about this, but now I occasionally feature music by scientists or music made in collaboration with scientists in Mixture.
I recently came across Big Manny on TikTok, where he does a lot of chemistry experiments. Turns out he’s also a rapper and he sings about science!
💡 Interesting links
Artist Ashley Zelinskie helps NASA scientists share their work, as covered by Matt Shaw for the New York Times
Grace Ebert reviews a new book about science illustration for Colossal, and shares some of the images that Anna Escardó and Julius Wiedemann curated for the book.
There’s a science to jazz swing, writes Evrin Yazgin for Cosmos Magazine
Nobel Prize winners are often interdisciplinary creative thinkers with hobbies. By Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein for The Conversation
How a world renowned orchestra got involved in offering stroke therapy, by Siobhan Harris for Medscape
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