The North Cambridge Family Opera Festival Chorus will be giving three FREE performances of the oratorio "Looking Up" featuring music from across the centuries about topics spanning the universe. The oratorio is being presented as part of the fourth annual Cambridge Science Festival. Works by G. F. Handel, Jonathan Coulton, Bruce Lazarus, David Haines, and Cambridge composers Andrea Gaudette and David Bass will be sung in "Looking Up". Four of the six composers will be making appearances in connection with the performances, and performing in at least some shows. Mr. Coulton is apparently not available, and Herr Handel, who is not currently responding to emails, has been deceased since 1759. For this we forgive him.

David Bass founded the North Cambridge Family Opera Company in 1999 and has been entertaining Cambridge with both his own operas and works by others (including David Haines) ever since. Andrea Gaudette received her Bachelor's Degree of Music with Academic Honors in Composition from New England Conservatory of Music in 1990 and is currently the director of music of music education at St. Peter’s School in Cambridge. Ms. Gaudette will be performing as will some of her students.

Bruce Lazarus will be giving a benefit performance for the North Cambridge Family Opera Company at the New School of Music on Thursday, April 29, 7:00 PM. The program is titled “ Musical Explorations of Messier Star clusters and Nebulae An Astronomic Adventure for Solo Piano”. Tickets are $20.00 (students/children $10.00), and are available through the NCFO website.

A demo version of the arrangement of Jonathan Coulton’s “I’m Your Moon” that will be sung is available by clicking on the song title. Written in 2006, after the International Astronomical Union downgraded Pluto to a "dwarf planet", it is a song of consolation sung by Charon to her sister Kuiper Belt object. ("They invented a reason, that’s why it stings. They don’t think you matter because you don’t have pretty rings.").

There will be four songs by NCFO director David Bass included. The titles are officially a surprise, but I have an inkling of the source. Hint: “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for”.

These performances are always beautifully sung and the subject matter is fun and interesting.

Disclaimer: The author has been a fan of and volunteer for NCFO for years and has family members in the show.