bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Associated Press

Strauss’ “The Blue Danube” is heading into space this month to mark the 200th anniversary of the waltz king’s birth.
The waltz will be beamed into the cosmos as it is performed by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.
The celestial send-off on May 31 – live-streamed with free public screenings in Vienna, Madrid and New York – will also celebrate the founding of the European Space Agency (ESA) 50 years ago.
Although the music could be converted into radio signals in real time, according to officials, ESA will relay a pre-recorded version from the orchestra’s rehearsal the day before to avoid any technical issues. The live performance will provide the accompaniment.


The radio signals will hurtle away at the speed of light, or more than 1 billion km/h (670 million mph).
That will put the music past the moon in 1 ½ seconds, past Mars in 4 ½ minutes, past Jupiter in 37 minutes and past Neptune in four hours. Within 23 hours, the signals will be as far from Earth as Nasa’s Voyager 1, the world’s most distant spacecraft at more than 24 billion km (15 billion miles) in interstellar space.
Nasa celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2008 by transmitting a song directly into deep space: the Beatles’ “Across the Universe”. And in 2024, Nasa beamed up Missy Elliott’s “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” towards Venus.
Music has even flowed from another planet to Earth – courtesy of a Nasa Mars rover. Flight controllers at California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory sent a recording of will.i.am’s “Reach for the Stars” to Curiosity in 2012 and the rover relayed it back.
These are all deep-space transmissions as opposed to the melodies streaming between Nasa’s Mission Control and orbiting crews since the mid-1960s.


Now it is Strauss’ turn, after getting passed over for the Voyager Golden Records nearly a half-century ago.
Launched in 1977, Nasa’s twin Voyagers 1 and 2 each carry a gold-plated copper phonograph record, along with a stylus and playing instructions for anyone or anything out there.
The records contain sounds and images of Earth as well as 90 minutes of music. The late astronomer Carl Sagan led the committee that chose Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Stravinsky pieces, along with modern and Indigenous musical selections.
Among those skipped was Johann Strauss II, whose “The Blue Danube” graced Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 sci-fi opus 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The tourist board in Vienna, where Strauss was born on October 25, 1825, said it aims to correct this “cosmic mistake” by sending the “the most famous of all waltzes” to its destined home among the stars.
ESA’s big radio antenna in Spain, part of the space agency’s deep-space network, will do the honours. The dish will be pointed in the direction of Voyager 1 so “The Blue Danube” heads that way.
“Music connects us all through time and space in a very particular way,” ESA’s director general, Josef Aschbacher, said.
“The European Space Agency is pleased to share the stage with Johann Strauss II and open the imaginations of future space scientists and explorers who may one day journey to the anthem of space.”


Disappointing BTS Seoul concert turnout causes agency stock to drop

BTS’ South Korea comeback crowd disappoints, triggering Hybe stock sell-off

1,200 musicians set Guinness World Record at concert in Hong Kong

Labubu, Blackpink’s Jennie draw thousands to ComplexCon in Hong Kong

Music

Strauss’ Blue Danube waltz to join Bach, Beatles music in space to mark his 200th birthday

The European Space Agency’s DSA-2 dish antenna. Photo: ESA via AP

A performance by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra of Johann Strauss II’s “The Blue Danube” will be beamed into space on May 31, 2025, and live-streamed to cities around the world. Photo: Instagram/musikverein.wien

The ESA’s DSA-2 in Cebreros, Spain. The deep-space dish antenna will send “the most famous of all waltzes” into space on May 31, 2025. Photo: ESA via AP

Conductor Chung Myung-whun likens La Scala appointment to marrying his ‘closest friend’

South Korean conductor Chung Myung-whun, 72, who will take over as music director of La Scala opera house in Milan, Italy, in 2027. Photo: Facebook/Teatro alla Scala

Chung Myung-whun is no stranger to La Scala, having conducted 84 opera performances and 141 orchestral concerts there. Photo: Shutterstock Images

La Scala is a global symbol of operatic tradition, and gave the premieres of operas like Verdi’s  Nabucco  and Puccini’s  Madama Butterfly. Photo: Shutterstock Images

Busan Concert Hall in South Korea, which Chung will continue to oversee. Photo: Classic Busan

Lang Lang, Renée Fleming, Tan Dun, Anne-Sophie Mutter among HKPhil 2025-26 season’s stars

Chinese pianist Lang Lang, whose last appearance in Hong Kong was for a performance at Disneyland, is among the stars of classical music performing with the Hong Kong Philharmonic in its 2025/26 season. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Soprano Renée Fleming, who will perform music from her award-winning album Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene with the Hong Kong Philharmonic in October 2025. Photo: Andrew Eccles, courtesy of Decca

Leila Josefowic will perform Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Violin Concerto, specially written for her, on April 24, 2026 with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. Photo: HKPhil

Esa-Pekka Salonen, former music director of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, will be the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra’s composer-in-Residence for its 2025-26 season. Photo: Andrew Eccles

(G)-IDLE rebrand as I-dle and release new album, We Are, fronted by ‘Good Thing’

(G)I-DLE - now called I-dle - perform at the 9th Gaon Chart K-Pop Awards in Seoul, South Korea, on January 8, 2020. Photo: Getty Images

A still from I-dle’s Queencard music video. Photo: YouTube/I-dle

1980s Hong Kong pop idol Danny Chan’s bittersweet success story: his talent, fame, the tabloid rumours, his retirement and early death

Singer Danny Chan Pak-keung puts one of his albums in a time capsule in 1991. Photo: SCMP

Danny Chan was one of Hong Hong’s “Three Kings and A Queen of Cantopop” in the 1980s, with fellow idols Leslie Cheung, Anita Mui and Alan Tam. Photo: SCMP

Yvonne Siu, project manager of TVB, presents a souvenir to Danny Chan in 1984. Photo: SCMP

Chan singing at his own birthday party in 1988. Photo: SCMP

Chan (left) and Jacky Cheung Hok-yau at the Top Ten Pop Stars Election in 1987. Photo: SCMP

There were numerous rumours about a relationship between Pansy Ho and Chan. Photo: Weibo

Chan performing at a concert to promote Aids awareness in 1990. Photo: SCMP

Chan was taken to Queen Mary Hospital after collapsing at home on May 19, 1992. Photo: SCMP

Flanked by singer Anita Mui Yim-fong and actor Chow Yun-fat, Danny Chan’s older brother Chan Pak-ling carries his younger brother’s picture at the singer’s funeral in 1993. Photo: SCMP

Lifestyle

Arts

Culture

European Space Agency will beam the waltz into deep space to mark 200 years since composer’s birth, after it was passed over by Nasa in 1977


European Space Agency will beam the waltz into deep space to mark 200 years since composer’s birth, after it was passed over by Nasa in 1977.


Classical music

Space

Offbeat

Strauss’ Blue Danube waltz to join Bach, Beatles music in space to mark his 200th birthday

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}European Space Agency will beam the waltz into deep space to mark 200 years since composer’s birth, after it was passed over by Nasa in 1977

European Space Agency will beam the waltz into deep space to mark 200 years since composer’s birth, after it was passed over by Nasa in 1977