22/12/2025
A musical piece inspired by the universe of nanoscience, created especially from the scientific work carried out at the Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, CEDENNA, premiered on Saturday, December 6, at the 2025 Sky Concert, a free experience that combines music, astronomy and science outreach through an innovative, sensitive and interdisciplinary artistic proposal.
As part of Science Week organized by the Faculty of Science of the Universidad de Santiago de Chile, the Sky Concert included two performances open to the community:
- Saturday, December 6, 8:30 p.m. – USACH Aula Magna (registration required)
- Thursday, December 11, 8:30 p.m. – Zócalo of the Municipality of Recoleta
Talk on nanoscience will open Saturday’s program
Before the concert, the audience attended a outreach talk specially linked to the concept of the work “Nanoworld”, given by physicist Dr. Juan Escrig, Pro-Rector of Usach, academic at the USACH Department of Physics and researcher at CEDENNA.
His presentation, titled “From the cosmos to the nanoworld: exploring the invisible”, discussed how science studies the smallest scales of matter and how this knowledge dialogues with other dimensions of the universe, from deep space to the microscopic.
This science outreach segment was complemented by talks from:
- Dr. Felipe Elorrieta (USACH): “Big Data and variable astronomical objects”.
- Dra. Alice Zurlo (Universidad Diego Portales): “Exomoons: the search for life beyond planets”.
The talks preceded the concert on Saturday, December 6, which culminated with the premiere of the cycle of musical works inspired by science.
The nanoworld brought to music and image
In this edition, Chilean composer Pablo Ariel López presented a cycle of four works that intertwine art and science from an emotional and reflective perspective. Particularly noteworthy was the premiere of “Nanoworld”, a composition with an Andean sound inspired by nanoscience research and CEDENNA’s book “Images of the Nanoworld”.
The work was accompanied by audiovisual projections built from real images obtained through electron microscopy, belonging to the archive of the project Images of the Nanoworld. These images make it possible to observe nanometric structures invisible to the human eye, where matter reveals shapes, textures and patterns of surprising beauty.
The projections correspond to real materials under scientific study: magnetic nanostructures, metallic nanowires, surfaces with nanowrinkles, metal oxides and other materials with concrete physical, chemical and technological properties. Each image was artistically worked on by the center’s researchers to bring this scientific discipline closer to audiences of all ages.
The project Images of the Nanoworld has given rise to traveling exhibitions, publications and educational materials that have toured schools, universities and public spaces, with the aim of bringing nanoscience closer to the public through accessible, visual and sensitive language. At the Sky Concert, these images took a new step: they dialogued with the music in real time, translating the invisible into sound.
A cycle that crosses art, astronomy and science
The full program of the 2025 Sky Concert included:
- Star Broker: inspired by big data technologies used to detect space events.
- Paranal: dedicated to the observatory of the same name and to the challenges astronomy faces from the industrialization of the desert.
- Nanoworld: inspired by nanoscience and images of the nano world.
- Portrait of an exomoon: the centerpiece of the cycle, dedicated to the YEMS Millennium Nucleus and the scientific milestone of obtaining the first direct image of an exomoon.
Music as a bridge to knowledge
For Pablo Ariel López, science outreach is a lifelong passion: “I firmly believe that Chilean society feels a great need for knowledge and culture. Music can be a bridge for audiences to be moved by the mysteries that science reveals to us with each discovery”.
He adds: “Composing for these kinds of spaces is a way to contribute, to create community and to value the encounter between art and science, in a life marked by immediacy”.
