Dazzling pictures of the planets taken by Jet Propulsion
Laboratory spacecraft will be featured in a free concert
Sunday, May 19, in Pasadena.

The concert by the Pasadena Young Musicians Orchestra will
be held in Pasadena City College’s Sexson Auditorium,
1570 E. Colorado Blvd., starting at 4 p.m.

While the young musicians perform excerpts from Holst’s
“The Planets,” JPL will present a multimedia show above the
stage with pictures captured by the lab’s robot spacecraft
during the past four decades. JPL is participating in the
community outreach event as part of a year-long celebration
of the 40th anniversary of the first spacecraft sent to
another planet, JPL’s Mariner 2 launched in 1962.

“The wondrous views of other worlds that we have gained
from 40 years of visiting them with robotic spacecraft
inspire artists, as well as scientists,” said Blaine
Baggett, JPL’s executive manager of communications and
education. “We’re pleased to have opportunities to
collaborate with creative neighbors, such as the members
of the Pasadena Young Musicians Orchestra.”

The multimedia presentation will focus on the Mars,
Jupiter and Venus portions of Holst’s work. A dash through
a martian canyon, based on images from the Mars Global
Surveyor spacecraft, and animations of landings of past and
future Mars rovers will accompany Holst’s vigorous Mars
movement. Jupiter and its diverse large moons will be seen
in pictures from the Voyager and Galileo missions, while
the Venus segment will feature images from the Magellan
mission.

The concert, under the direction of Jo Raquel Stoup, will
also include works by Wolfgang Mozart, Carl Maria von Weber,
Jean Sibelius and Jack Stamp. About 90 teens from Altadena,
Arcadia, Glendale, La Canada Flintridge, La Crescenta,
Monrovia, Pasadena, San Gabriel, San Marino, South Pasadena
and Temple City make up the Pasadena Young Musicians Orchestra.
The orchestra is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

For more information about the concert and orchestra, call
(626) 797-1994 or visit http://www.pymo.org . Information about
missions that JPL manages for NASA is available at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov . JPL is a division of the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

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