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AUDIO: The music of science

Contributor

John Pickrell

Contributor

John Pickrell

John Pickrell is the editor of Australian Geographic. He is a science writer, author, nature lover and self-confessed geek. Blog posts range over Southern Hemisphere palaeontology, dinosaurs, megafauna, archaeology, palaeoanthropology and a smattering of other topics.

John Willams' score for the 1993 film Jurassic Park was meant to capture the sense of awe and fascination of seeing dinosaurs reborn; it is regarded as among the composer's best work. Image credit: Mondo / mondotees.com

I WAS ASKED this week to go on ABC Classic FM’s ‘Midday Interview’ – Margaret Throsby’s iconic radio show which has been running in various formats for more than 15 years. The premise of the show is simple: the interviewee has to pick five pieces of music to be interspersed with a discussion lasting the best part of an hour.

But knowing that Margaret wanted to talk about about palaeontology, fossils and dinosaurs, which tracks would I pick? The first one was a no-brainer, but in the end I went with a series of classical compositions that were all science-linked in some way.

From John Williams’ Theme from Jurassic Park to Jupiter from Gustav Holst’s The Planets, you can listen to the interview and the full music selection here.

(N.B. The image above shows a 2014 vinyl re-release of the Jurassic Park soundtrack by art company Mondo. Only 6000 copies were printed, including just 1000 of this version with translucent amber coloured vinyl and a design by artist Dan McCarthy. Learn more on Mashable).

John Pickrell is the author of Flying Dinosaurs: How fearsome reptiles became birds, published by NewSouth Books in June 2014. Follow him on Twitter @john_pickrell.

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