A multimedia performance with Icebreaker, music by Brian Eno, Roger Eno, Daniel Lanois and exclusive images from space.

Postmodern, zero gravity music, with electronic and ambient notes: this is the centre of the multimedia performance Apollo Soundtrack, to celebrate in Matera, European Capital of Culture 2019, the fiftieth anniversary of the landing on the Moon, with the Apollo 11 mission. The initiative stems from a project of the Matera Basilicata 2019 Foundation, supported by Leonardo, a world-leading company in the high-tech sector. Through its technologies, the company has carried out some of the most important space missions in recent years and it is now present in the Matera Space Center.

With music composed by Brian Eno (http://www.icebreaker.org.uk/composers/brian-eno/), Roger Eno and Daniel Lanois, performed by Icebreaker (http://www.icebreaker.org.uk/about /), a British 12-piece ensemble, Apollo Soundtrack will be premiered for the first time outside the UK. The event dedicated to the touchdown on the lunar surface, performed at “Cava del Sole” in Matera next July 18, with Roger Eno, BJ Cole and the Icelandic cellist, Gyda Valtysdottir, was announced this morning during a press conference in Rome at the House of the Jazz.

"The original idea behind Apollo Soundrack - said James Poke, musician and director of Icebreaker (http://www.icebreaker.org.uk/members/james-poke/) - was born in the 1980s, when Brian Eno had imagined dedicating a documentary to the moon landing. Later the idea was transformed into a live performance. The music first appeared in the album Apollo by Brian and Roger Eno together with Daniel Lanois. It was then rearranged by the South Korean musician Woojun Lee, giving rise to two different performances, which featured, as a special guest, one of the world’s greatest pedal steel guitarist, BJ Cole. In 2019, the anniversary of the first landing on the moon, it is a true pleasure for us to have been invited to Matera, the European Capital of Culture, to contribute to the various events with two special live performances set in a unique place of breath-taking beauty. The work will present a new version as we have the great pleasure and privilege of having among the musicians one of the original composers, Roger Eno, who will perform the show for the first time ".

"For me - said the musician BJ Cole (http://www.bjcole.co.uk/) - it is a great honour to have received the proposal to participate as a special guest in Apollo along with Icebreaker. Even more because it is a European premiere. The pedal steel guitar, the instrument I am a specialist in, was incorporated into this piece with the purpose of preparing the scene. I refer explicitly to the cultural background of the astronauts, many of whom came from Texas or were trained at NASA centres. What I have tried to do was to free this instrument from American music, from the American way of playing it, in the sense of expanding its possibilities. When I listened to Daniel Lanois, who was given the role for pedal steel guitarist in Brian Eno's Apollo, it felt like a new window had been open for me. I began to see a new way of playing my own instrument. Many years later, during which I have introduced the instrument in various musical genres, I can say that I could never have made this contamination without Apollo Soundtrack”.

Speaking via telephone, the musician and composer Roger Eno (http://www.rogereno.com/) said he is excited to perform in Matera in the year as European Capital of Culture.

"Among the protagonists of that extraordinary mission - declared Paolo Verri, general manager of the Matera Basilicata Foundation 2019 - there was also Rocco Petrone, son of Lucanian migrants. He was the one who supervised all the NASA launches and subsequently the entire Apollo program. "

"We could not miss - said Raffaella Luglini, Chief Officer at Leonardo - a unique event like Matera European Capital of Culture 2019. Leonardo has been present since 1994 in the space center of Matera, through Telespazio. We are also neighbours as we work in close co-operation with the Italian Space Agency (ASI), which operates the Geodesy Center. This is why we are here today. We believe that the encounter between different worlds and experiences creates the alchemy necessary to extraordinary achievements like the mission celebrated by "Apollo Soundtrack".

Matera is home to one of the most advanced space centers in the world. Created in 1994, it is part of the national and international network of centers operated by Telespazio, a joint venture between Leonardo (67%) and Thales (33%). The site is dedicated to Earth observation and, along with the Geodesy Center of the Italian Space Agency (ASI), established in 1983, forms the Matera Space Center.

From Matera a laser beam, MLRO (Matera Laser Ranging Observatory) from ASI, periodically reaches the lunar soil on which some retroreflectors were positioned during the Apollo missions and, later, by Lunokhod robotic rovers. The measurements of Earth-Moon distance, obtained from the time of going and returning of the laser beam, allow to carry out fundamental studies of physics and general relativity to broaden the knowledge of the internal structure of our natural satellite.

Thanks to Leonardo's contribution, spectacular satellite images -acquired by the Matera Space Center, where e-GEOS operates- will be projected throughout the musical performance. E-Geos is a company jointly owned by Telespazio (80%) and ASI (20%). It acquires and processes satellite images, gaining information that is invaluable in safeguarding the health of our Planet and the life on Earth from all across the Space.