Geodesium is the name of a music project by composer and recording artist Mark C. Petersen. The word is formed by combining the terms "geodesic dome

Geodesic dome

A geodesic dome is a spherical or partial-spherical shell structure or lattice shell based on a network of great circles on the surface of a sphere. The geodesics intersect to form triangular elements that have local triangular rigidity and also distribute the stress across the structure. When...

" and "planetarium

Planetarium

A planetarium is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation...

" and refers to the space music

Space music

Space music, also called spacemusic, is an umbrella term, synonymous with a segment of New Age Music and Ambient Music, used to describe music that evokes a feeling of contemplative spaciousness. Space music can be found within a wide range of genres. It is particularly associated with ambient, New...

 Petersen creates specifically for use as scores for planetarium shows.

Peteresen has produced soundtracks for over 50 planetarium shows performed in installations in 28 countries around the world.

He has performed several live music shows in planetariums in the USA and the UK as well, but he considers his work to be a studio creation and not particularly well-suited to live performances, as his music features multiple electronic musical instruments, difficult to operate in real time.
The music of Geodesium has been featured in planetarium shows narrated by well-known screen personalities including James Earl Jones

James Earl Jones

James Earl Jones is an American actor. He is well-known for his distinctive bass voice and for his portrayal of characters of substance, gravitas and leadership...

, William Shatner

William Shatner

William Alan Shatner is a Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, and author. He gained worldwide fame and became a cultural icon for his portrayal of James T...

, Leonard Nimoy

Leonard Nimoy

Leonard Simon Nimoy is an American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer. Nimoy's most famous role is that of Spock in the original Star Trek series , multiple films, television and video game sequels....

 and Patrick Stewart

Patrick Stewart

Sir Patrick Hewes Stewart, OBE is an English film, television and stage actor, who has had a distinguished career in theatre and television for around half a century...

. Geodesium's music has also appeared in TV commercials for major corporations including AT&T

AT&T

AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...

, Ford, Pizza Hut

Pizza Hut

Pizza Hut is an American restaurant chain and international franchise that offers different styles of pizza along with side dishes including pasta, buffalo wings, breadsticks, and garlic bread....

, Honda

Honda

is a Japanese public multinational corporation primarily known as a manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles.Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, as well as the world's largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines measured by volume, producing more than...

, Coors

Coors Brewing Company

The Coors Brewing Company is a regional division of the world's fifth-largest brewing company, the Canadian Molson Coors Brewing Company and is the third-largest brewer in the United States...

, and the Colorado Lottery

Colorado Lottery

The Colorado Lottery is run by the government of Colorado. It is a member of the Multi-State Lottery Association .The Colorado Lottery began on January 24, 1983, initially selling only scratch tickets. Its first drawing took place on April 23, 1983...

.
and has been featured in a variety of NASA-produced programs, Digistar demonstration shows for Evans & Sutherland, and special-effects laserdiscs for Sky-Skan. Geodesium music has been featured on spacemusic radio programs such as Musical Starstreams

Musical Starstreams

Musical Starstreams is a terrestrial and internet radio program that first aired in the San Francisco bay area in December 1981...

, Music from The Hearts of Space

Hearts of Space

Hearts of Space is a United States weekly syndicated public radio show featuring music of a contemplative nature drawn largely from the ambient, New Age and electronic genres, while also including classical, world, Celtic, experimental, and other music selections...

, and Opus 357.

History

Petersen's interest in creating music for planetariums was sparked in 1975 when he observed the construction of the planetarium at the University of Colorado

University of Colorado at Boulder

The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...

. After sharing some of his Moog synthesizer

Moog synthesizer

Moog synthesizer may refer to any number of analog synthesizers designed by Dr. Robert Moog or manufactured by Moog Music, and is commonly used as a generic term for older-generation analog music synthesizers. The Moog company pioneered the commercial manufacture of modular voltage-controlled...

 recordings with the planetarium's designer, Petersen was invited to create the music for the first show at the new facility, and was the composer-in-residence there from 1975 to 1978.

Discography

All released by Loch Ness Productions:

• West of the Galaxy, 1987
• Fourth Universe, 1992
• Anasazi, 1993
• Stellar Collections, 2006 - Loch Ness Production

External links

• Information at Loch Ness Productions
• [ Geodesium] on Allmusic
• Geodesium on Discogs
  Discogs
  Discogs, short for discographies, is a website and database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. The Discogs servers, currently hosted under the domain name discogs.com, are owned by Zink Media, Inc., and are...