In The Moons Symphony, Australian-born composer Amanda Lee Falkenberg depicts seven of the moons in our solar system. Megan Steller catches up with Falkenberg and some of her key collaborators, including conductor Marin Alsop and a number of leading scientists, to find out how this epic space adventure came to be, and what listeners can expect from the thrilling artistic odyssey.

The Moons Symphony
The Verona Rupes, The Great Wall of Miranda. Image © Ron Miller

I. The Abstract

If you really look, you still might miss her, but she is there – faintly, perhaps, yes – a character broken and battered. Her surface is strange and varied, cratered, ridged, scarred, reassembled. She is named for the heroine of Shakespeare’s tempestuous play. We...