Earlier this year we learned Forward to the Moon (the planetarium film Ryan scored last year) was being updated to include footage from Artemis I. Artemis is a multi-stage space program and the first unmanned test flight successfully ran from September-December 2022. You can read about it on NASA’s website here. The film originally displayed 3D animation of the rocket taking off during the day, however the actual flight took off at night. So being that it was going to be reopened we asked… is there any time, budget, and/or interest in remastering the music? And let me tell you, we were shocked to hear “yes!”
Thanks to John Keller and Thor Metzinger at the University of Colorado Boulder, with grant funding from NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute, the updated release of Forward to the Moon features a fully remastered score recorded by Budapest Scoring Orchestra. Apollo 17 astronaut Jack Schmitt, who is the most recent living person to walk on the moon, will screen it for the first time at the Meeting of the American Astronomical Society on June 5.
The movie is available at no cost for planetariums to add to their programming. As of May 2023, 375 planetariums in 52 countries have downloaded the first release to show in their theaters.
Ryan and all of us on the team put so much heart into this music! We hope it helps the next generation fall in love with the universe.
Credits:
Music by Ryan Lofty
Score Producer - Courtney Lofty
Composer Assistant - Brandon Liew
Orchestrator - Òscar Senén
Recorded by Budapest Scoring Orchestra
Conductor - Péter Illényi
Session Producer - Bálint Sapszon
Orchestra Coordinator - Bertalan Veér
Recording Engineer - Dénes Rédly
Live Drums - Daniel B. Hill