Latest news with #TheBlueDanube
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Vienna to beam Strauss' iconic Blue Danube waltz into space to mark his 200th birthday
To mark Johann Strauss II's 200th birthday, Vienna is sending his iconic waltz The Blue Danube into space - decades after it was left off the Voyager Golden Record. View on euronews
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Vienna calling: Strauss's 'The Blue Danube' to waltz into outer space
Austrian composer Johann Strauss II's "The Blue Danube" has, for many people, been synonymous with space travel since it was used in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 sci-fi film classic "2001: A Space Odyssey". But the world famous waltz will truly travel among the stars on Saturday, when the European Space Agency's (ESA) antenna will broadcast a live performance of it into space to celebrate the composer's 200th birthday. The Vienna Symphony Orchestra will play a concert in the Austrian capital from 1930 GMT, Josef Aschbacher, ESA's director general, told AFP. The concert will be broadcast live on the internet and also be shown at a public screening in Vienna, in New York at Bryant Park, and near the antenna in Spain. "The digitised sound will be transmitted to the large 35-metre satellite dish at ESA's Cebreros ground station in Spain," Aschbacher said. And from there, the waltz will be "transmitted in the form of electromagnetic waves", the Austrian astronomer explained. - 'Typical of space' - Like no other waltz by Strauss junior, "The Blue Danube" evokes the elegance of 19th-century imperial Vienna, which lives on in the city's roaring ball season. For Norbert Kettner, director of the Vienna tourist board, the Danube waltz is a "true unofficial space anthem" because of Kubrick. The timeless waltz is the "typical sound of space", Kettner said, with the tunes being played "during various docking manoeuvres of the International Space Station (ISS)". When the waltz is performed on Saturday, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra will make sure to underline the waltz's airiness as if it were floating through space, its director Jan Nast said. According to Nast, who put together the programme for Saturday's hour-long "interstellar concert", music is a language "which touches many people" and has "the universal power to convey hope and joy". - Filling a gap - Once transmitted via Spain's satellite dish, the signal will travel at the speed of light to eventually reach NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft -- the most distant man-made object in the universe -- in approximately 23 hours and 3 minutes. After surpassing Voyager 1, it will continue its interstellar journey. By catching up with the spacecraft and its twin, Voyager 2, Austria also seeks to right a perceived wrong. Both Voyagers carry "Golden Records" -- 12-inch, gold-plated copper disks intended to convey the story of our world to extraterrestrials. The record holds 115 images of life on Earth, recorded in analogue form, and a variety of sounds and snatches of music. While "The Magic Flute" by Austria's composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was included among the selection of 27 music pieces, Strauss's famous waltz was not. bg/kym/jza/phz
France 24
14 hours ago
- Entertainment
- France 24
Vienna calling: Strauss's 'The Blue Danube' to waltz into outer space
But the world famous waltz will truly travel among the stars on Saturday, when the European Space Agency's (ESA) antenna will broadcast a live performance of it into space to celebrate the composer's 200th birthday. The Vienna Symphony Orchestra will play a concert in the Austrian capital from 1930 GMT, Josef Aschbacher, ESA's director general, told AFP. The concert will be broadcast live on the internet and also be shown at a public screening in Vienna, in New York at Bryant Park, and near the antenna in Spain. "The digitised sound will be transmitted to the large 35-metre satellite dish at ESA's Cebreros ground station in Spain," Aschbacher said. And from there, the waltz will be "transmitted in the form of electromagnetic waves", the Austrian astronomer explained. 'Typical of space' Like no other waltz by Strauss junior, "The Blue Danube" evokes the elegance of 19th-century imperial Vienna, which lives on in the city's roaring ball season. For Norbert Kettner, director of the Vienna tourist board, the Danube waltz is a "true unofficial space anthem" because of Kubrick. The timeless waltz is the "typical sound of space", Kettner said, with the tunes being played "during various docking manoeuvres of the International Space Station (ISS)". When the waltz is performed on Saturday, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra will make sure to underline the waltz's airiness as if it were floating through space, its director Jan Nast said. According to Nast, who put together the programme for Saturday's hour-long "interstellar concert", music is a language "which touches many people" and has "the universal power to convey hope and joy". Filling a gap Once transmitted via Spain's satellite dish, the signal will travel at the speed of light to eventually reach NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft -- the most distant man-made object in the universe -- in approximately 23 hours and 3 minutes. After surpassing Voyager 1, it will continue its interstellar journey. By catching up with the spacecraft and its twin, Voyager 2, Austria also seeks to right a perceived wrong. Both Voyagers carry "Golden Records" -- 12-inch, gold-plated copper disks intended to convey the story of our world to extraterrestrials. The record holds 115 images of life on Earth, recorded in analogue form, and a variety of sounds and snatches of music. While "The Magic Flute" by Austria's composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was included among the selection of 27 music pieces, Strauss's famous waltz was not.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
VIENNA CELEBRATES AT BRYANT PARK AS THE BLUE DANUBE WALTZ IS SENT INTO SPACE
VIENNA, May 28, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The Vienna Tourist Board is hosting a unique free event in New York's Bryant Park on May 31 to celebrate a historic transmission into deep space. In partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Wiener Symphoniker (Vienna Symphony Orchestra), Vienna will launch Johann Strauss II's "The Blue Danube" waltz towards NASA's Voyager 1. This interstellar broadcast is part of a larger celebration marking the 200th anniversary of Strauss's birth and rectifies its omission from the original Voyager Golden Records. Norbert Kettner, Director of the Vienna Tourist Board, said: "Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey made the 'Danube Waltz' the anthem of space – the omission of the most famous of all waltzes from the 1977 Voyager Golden Record is a cosmic mistake that we are correcting." The event is the culmination of Vienna's "Waltz Space" campaign, which invited fans to symbolically send a note of the song into space, with 13,743 note sponsors. The campaign aims not just to commemorate Strauss's birth, but to reinforce Vienna's status as the music capital of the world, positioning it as a destination full of rich musical experiences. The free event will take place in Manhattan's Bryant Park from 1:00 to 5:00 PM: 1:00 PM: Pre-show festivities with DJ Kyra Caruso, waltz lessons by Aga Bohun, and opportunities to claim a "SpaceNote"—a unique note from "The Blue Danube"—for a chance to win a trip to Vienna. 2:30 PM: Live broadcast of the "Waltz into Space" concert from Vienna's Museum of Applied Arts (MAK), featuring works by Dvořák, Ligeti, Mozart, Josef Strauss, and Ives. 3:30 PM: Real-time transmission of "The Blue Danube" into deep space via ESA's Deep Space Antenna in Cebreros, Spain. 3:45 PM: Post-event wind-down with music and refreshments. The event is free and open to the public. Representatives from the Vienna Tourist Board will be available for interviews. For press photos, visit this Dropbox-Page. For more information on the "Waltz into Space" campaign, Vienna Tourist Board Newsroom or For the event's website visit SOURCE Vienna Tourist Board Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
The Herald Scotland
5 days ago
- Sport
- The Herald Scotland
Fine margins as Ferguson and Fyfe miss out on a double Scotch
There are, of course, plenty of things you can try to do to aid this infernal process of hitting a small ball with a stick. The great Sam Snead, for instance, would often hum The Blue Danube to maintain a delightfully smooth motion of impeccable timing. As for me? Well, as I shoogle into the address position, while trying to remember the sage advice that I should 'swivel canny and keep yer ee on the erse o' the ba'', the increasingly flustered nature of golf at my level doesn't really lend itself to the measured cadences of a Strauss waltz. It's more like the pandemonium of the theme tune that accompanied the closing slap-stick chase in The Benny Hill Show. So, let's move on to folk with a bit of natural flair for this game, shall we? At the weekend, there was hope that we would get to savour a double-whammy of Scottish successes on the DP World Tour and the HotelPlanner Tour, formerly the Challenge Tour, as Ewen Ferguson and Calum Fyfe both assumed command in the Soudal Open and the Danish Golf Challenge respectively after 54-holes. In fact, when Robert MacIntyre muscled his way into contention during round three of the Charles Schwab Challenge on the PGA Tour over in the US, we probably got a trifle greedy and thought the tartan lads would knock off a triple crown. In the end, of course, we ended up with nowt. Ferguson, leading by two with 18-holes to play in Belgium, watched his par-putt on the last to win a fourth tour crown lip out and he was vanquished in a three-man play-off. Fyfe, meanwhile, saw his three-shot overnight lead gobbled up by Jonathan Goth-Rasmussen. Despite a valiant brace of birdies on the last two holes, the Glasgow man was pipped to a maiden title on the second-tier circuit by a shot. Disappointment is par for the course in this game. Fyfe's loss, in particular, was a mighty shame. Just a couple of weeks after the death of his mother, there was a great poignancy to his brave title tilt. Hopefully, opportunity will come knocking again for the spirited 27-year-old who earned his stripes with wins on the now defunct PGA EuroPro Tour and Paul Lawrie's Tartan Pro Tour in recent seasons. Fyfe's golfing journey has been one of drive, determination and resilience, which are just some of the valuable attributes you need to have a chance of making a decent fist of it in this ruthless old business. Back in 2017, he won the Scottish amateur order of merit, despite having to limit his outings due to funding issues. With his mum seriously ill at the time, there was plenty of domestic anguish to deal with too, but Fyfe's resolve and ambition would remain undiminished. Golf may be a very individual pursuit but it's hard to make it on your own. Not everybody gets a helping hand, but Fyfe was fortunate to earn the support of the Golfing 4 Life programme, a philanthropic initiative designed to aid talented golfers who face financial constraints. That programme was co-founded by Jimmy Byers and the well-kent music guru, Bill Curbishley. Among his many famous clients, Curbishley managed the affairs of rock giants, The Who. Apparently, there's no truth in the rumour that Roger Daltrey's iconic scream in the song 'Won't Get Fooled Again' was recorded during a company golf outing when he three-putted from six-feet. In a conversation with this scribe a few years ago, the aforementioned Byers spoke enthusiastically of Fyfe's talents and character. 'He wants to win, he's hungry as hell and he's a little terrier,' he said of the softly spoken father of two. Those qualities will stand him in good stead. In a professional scene of daunting strength in depth across the spectrum, winning, at any level, is hellishly difficult. Fyfe is well aware of that. His sturdy overnight advantage evaporated with three bogeys on his first eight holes of the closing round. To his credit, Fyfe covered his last six holes in four-under to keep himself in the thick of it when he could've easily slithered out of the picture. To Goth-Rasmussen's credit, meanwhile, the Dane birdied his last hole to pinch the prize by a fine margin. Fyfe's runners-up finish hoisted him up to 15th place on the HotelPlanner Tour rankings. We're only a third of the way through the season but his push for promotion to the DP World Tour has been given a significant lift, despite the disappointment of defeat. The cut-and thrust of the Challenge Tour – sorry, I still can't get used to calling it the wonderfully bland HotelPlanner Tour – continues to provide a tremendously thorough apprenticeship 'I always knew I had the game to compete on here,' he said after Saturday's third round. On this proven breeding ground, Fyfe continues to prove his worth. And look at that? You've reached the bottom of this page again. Another meaningless task of everyday life is complete.
