A massive drone art show is taking to the Boston skies tonight
The DroneArt Show is a candlelit open-air concert featuring a live string quartet—think well-known masterpieces like Vivaldi's 'The Four Seasons' and Tchaikovsky's 'Swan Lake'—accompanied by dazzling displays of synchronized drone displays. Outfitted with programmable LED lights, these bits of flying tech will arrange themselves into figures like lotus blossoms, swans and ballerinas, giving your grandparents' fireworks a run for their money.
To the lush sounds of Debussy's 'The Snow Is Dancing,' the drone fleet will assemble and dissemble into dozens of new formations, reflecting the thrilling movements of the timeless music. Their vivid designs are tightly choreographed to complement the spirit of the live concert, evoking a breathtaking emotional response.
The first act of the program will reflect the four seasons, with the second presenting a sky-bound homage to birds: from chicks and cuckoos to swans.
This blend of classical music and state-of-the-art technology has sold out engagements across the U.S., Australia and Spain, and will continue working its magic in cities worldwide given its popularity. Next up: Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco in August.
Tickets range from $39 to $53 and include seats. Looking for an upgrade? The VIP Picnic Experience ($105) seats you in the best viewing area and includes a personal picnic blanket, candle and special snack, along with fast-track entry.
Doors to this all-ages event will open 90 minutes before its scheduled 8:45 pm start time. Food and beverage will be available for purchase at the event, though without gluten-free or vegan options. Rest easy, though, as outside nourishment is permitted (though not alcoholic drinks).
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No one ever fought off the trappings of fame and success so fiercely as the singer, songwriter, and mathematician Tom Lehrer, who has died aged 97. He was an enigma. The songs that made him famous were mostly written and recorded before 1960, after which he returned to teaching mathematics and tried to behave as though no one had heard of him. His songs were by turns gloriously vulgar, ludicrously macabre or ferociously political: I Got It from Agnes – 'it' being a sexually transmitted disease; I Hold Your Hand in Mine, in which the held hand is no longer attached to a body; and We Will All Go Together When We Go, perhaps the best anti-nuclear weapons song ever written, praising 'Universal bereavement / An inspiring achievement'. Others were wonderfully clever games with words and music, including The Elements (1959), which names all the chemical elements, set to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan's I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General. He began writing songs as a graduate student at Harvard, where he had enrolled at 15 and had taken a first-class maths degree at 18. He sang them to his friends and soon people started asking him to perform at parties. 'My songs spread slowly,' he said. 'Like herpes, rather than Ebola.' The politics and rudeness of his material put off the record companies, so in 1953 he paid for 400 discs to be cut of a record called Songs of Tom Lehrer, having worked out that if he sold them all, he would break even. He sold many more than that: he had to keep getting them cut. His university idyll was broken by a period with the Atomic Energy Commission at Los Alamos, and two years in the army. 'I dodged the draft for as long as anybody was shooting at anybody,' he said. 'I waited until everything was calm and then surrendered to the draft board.' 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