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As humanity stands on the threshold of a new era in space exploration, BAFTA-nominated composer Ilan Eshkeri is inviting audiences to shift their perspective, not by looking up at the stars, but by seeing Earth as astronauts do.
Returning this summer for a UK tour following its sold-out 2022 premiere at the Royal Albert Hall, Space Station Earth is a long-form live experience that merges music, film and philosophy. Created in collaboration with the European Space Agency and shaped by extraordinary high-definition footage filmed aboard the International Space Station, the work captures what astronauts call the “Overview Effect”, the profound cognitive shift that occurs when viewing our planet from orbit as a single, finite system suspended in the vastness of space.
For Eshkeri, the project began not with science, but with conversation. A friendship with British astronaut Tim Peake sparked an enduring fascination with how that orbital perspective alters human perception. Rather than attempting to explain the astronaut’s experience, Eshkeri set out to create a musical space in which audiences could feel it for themselves. The result is not a traditional concert, but a sustained emotional arc, a work performed on synthesisers, supported by orchestra and choir, unfolding alongside a vast triptych film directed by Eshkeri himself.
At its core lies a quietly radical idea: that Earth is itself a space station, and we are not passengers, but crew. As human spaceflight returns to public consciousness — particularly with missions such as Artemis II preparing to carry astronauts farther from Earth than at any time in the past half-century, Space Station Earth resonates with renewed urgency. It asks what responsibility comes with perspective, and how art can hold experiences that science alone cannot articulate.
In this interview, Eshkeri reflects on collaboration and trust with space agencies, on composing beyond applause and traditional structure, and on how repetition, layering and gradual change mirror the motion of orbit itself. He speaks about synaesthesia, scale, and the delicate relationship between music and image and about the emotional, rather than instructional, journey he hopes audiences will carry with them long after the final note fades.
Ilan, this work is rooted in something astronauts call the “Overview Effect”, that moment of seeing Earth from space. When did you first encounter that idea, and what stirred you creatively about it?
I first encountered the idea through a friendship with astronaut Tim Peake. After many conversations, what stayed with me was his changed perspective from orbit: seeing Earth in the vastness of space as a single, finite system in motion. That idea connected profoundly with my work, which focuses on abstract emotional narratives. The challenge was to avoid trying to explain the astronaut’s experience and instead, allow the music to create a space in which that perspective could be experienced by the audience.
This project involved close collaboration with organisations like the European Space Agency, as well as access to footage filmed aboard the International Space Station. How did that collaboration first come about, and what kind of trust was needed on both sides to turn something so scientific into an emotional, artistic experience?
I approached the work by considering how the experience of spaceflight could be communicated in human terms rather than technical ones. Seeing Earth from orbit is a deep shift in perception. Music allows that experience to be shared through scale, fragility, intimacy, and time, creating emotional trajectories that leave room for reflection rather than explanation. I was supported by ESA with access to their databases and extraordinary environments, including launches and a zero-gravity flight where I experienced weightlessness. Later I shared versions of the work with scientists and astronauts to ensure both the physics and the musical description of their experiences held true. Trust was built through the creative process.
You’ve described “Space Station Earth” as a long-form musical work rather than a concert in the traditional sense. How did that shape the way you approached composing it?
Space Station Earth is a concert with a sustained emotional and sonic arc rather than a sequence of individual pieces. The structure mirrors a journey on multiple levels: from day to night, from the earliest stages of human exploration to the edge of current technology, and from an Earth-bound to a space-bound perspective. This allows a multi-layered emotional journey to unfold gradually over the duration of the performance. That continuity allows perception to change slowly over time, rather than being broken by individual, unlinked pieces separated by applause.
Space Station Earth is a live concert in which music leads a long-form emotional journey, with a triptych film directed to exist inside the musical space.
The music unfolds alongside extraordinary footage filmed aboard the International Space Station. What was it like composing to images that already carry such emotional weight?
I composed the album first. The music is conceived as an emotional journey built from layered, repeating cells that gradually evolve, allowing multiple perspectives to exist at the same time. It establishes the emotional and philosophical framework of the performance before any images are set. The music does not respond to individual images or attempt to heighten them. Instead, the images were shaped to sit within the emotional space created by the musical work.
The process of bringing the visuals in to support the music began with a book of images I created to articulate the narrative, I then directed a team of editors, designing the visuals as a triptych. This allowed different perspectives to coexist in the same way musical layers interact. Directing a film was new for me, but in many ways it felt like a natural extension of the compositional process.
You’ve said the film and the music function as a single emotional narrative. How do you decide where the music leads, and where it simply listens?
That relationship is shaped by the same principle described above, with the music establishing the emotional framework and the film existing within it.
There’s a striking idea at the heart of the project that Earth itself is a space station, and that we are all crew rather than passengers. What do you hope that framing prompts audiences to reflect on?
The idea came from hearing stories from astronauts about arriving on the space station. After years of intensive training, simulation, and preparation, where every system and procedure has been rehearsed repeatedly and nothing should be a surprise, they describe being taken aback by the realisation that if you don’t look after the vessel you’re travelling in, and the people you’re travelling with, you won’t survive the journey. When they later go to the Cupola, the seven-windowed module that looks back at Earth, they realise the same is true on a different scale. Their realisation is that we are all travelling on this planet together and survival depends on how well we look after it and each other. The music is intended to hold that idea as an experience, allowing each listener to reflect on it in their own way.
This piece feels deeply philosophical, but it’s also very sensory, sound, image, and scale. How important was it for you that people feel this work physically as well as intellectually?
The sensory and physical dimensions are intrinsic to the music. The scale, duration, and evolving layers of the composition allow it to move between intimacy and vastness, reflecting shifts in perspective. Writing for synthesizers, orchestra, and choir set against a large-scale triptych film allows that breadth to be articulated by framing the band and placing the live performance within a larger spatial and emotional context.
Your musical language often evolves slowly, with repetition and gradual change. Why does that feel like the right vocabulary for a project about orbit, time, and perspective?
The music is built from repeated melodic ideas layered on top of one another, so perspective shifts through accumulation. Repetition here is not about slowness, but about multiplicity, allowing perspective to continually shift. That same layering in the music and in the film, reflects physical movement in orbit, with multiple motions happening at once. Some melodies unfold quickly, others over longer spans, creating a multi-layered experience that reflects how astronauts describe seeing Earth: ocean, land, cloud systems, and the thin atmospheric edge, all distinct yet simultaneous, set against the blackness of space.
You’ve spoken before about your synaesthesia, experiencing sound and colour together. Did that shape the way you connected the score to the visuals here?
Synaesthesia underpins all of my work; it’s part of how I experience the world. Perceiving sound and colour together gives me a very powerful sense of aesthetic, how timbre and colour connect, which sounds work together, which colours work together, and how those relationships connect across sound and image. In Space Station Earth, that shared sensory instinct shaped both the composition and the visual language.
The premiere at the Royal Albert Hall in 2022 was sold out and very warmly received. Did audience reaction at that first performance influence how the piece has evolved for this tour?
The audience becomes part of the conditions in which the work exists. That first performance was less about reaction and more about revealing how the piece works in practice. The work hasn’t changed in response, but how it functions live has become clearer through each performance. This has allowed for refinements in staging and performance so that the piece is articulated better each time it’s performed
This summer’s UK tour arrives at a moment when human spaceflight is moving back into public consciousness, particularly with missions like Artemis II. Does that wider context change how you think people might receive the work now?
The timing places the work within a broader human moment. For the first time in more than fifty years, we are preparing to return to the Moon, and humans are travelling farther from Earth than ever before. To encounter Earth from that distance, to see through the eyes of those astronauts, gives Space Station Earth more relevance and meaning. Much of this journey is understood through science, but the human experience of it exists in a different register, which is where the work sits.
Much of your career has moved fluidly between film, games, live performance, and theatre. What does a live work like this allow you to express that screen-based scoring doesn’t?
An independent musical work, while still driven by emotional narrative that you may find in other disciplines, allows the structure of the music and its trajectory to be determined by me, taking into account only the needs of the composition itself. By contrast, particularly with film and TV, the process of editing is unique and creates a fixed timeline and rhythmic structure that the music must align with, which can be restrictive for composition. Having said that, all art processes have restrictions, and that can often be where the most creative moments happen.
When audiences leave “Space Station Earth”, what feeling or perhaps what question do you most hope they carry with them?
I don’t want to impose anything on the audience. Space Station Earth is designed as an experience rather than a statement. The astronauts all share the same experience of seeing Earth from space, but rarely return with the same emphasis and so the same is true of this work. Audiences will connect with different aspects of it. The layered structure allows emotional states and trajectories to emerge over time and allows the audience to discover feelings or questions that are unique to them. All the while, the idea of Earth as a shared system in the vastness of space sits at the foundation of the experience.
