When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions (Richard Blair-Oliphant)

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The latest exciting entry into MovieScore Media’s Discovery Collection is Richard Blair-Oliphant’s Emmy-nominated orchestral score for the 2008 documentary series When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions. The score album is released in 2019 in celebration of the 50th anniversary year of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Narrated by Gary Sinise, the six-part television event on Discovery Channel gave viewers a unique look at the Golden Age of space travel, including episodes dedicated to the Mercury and the Gemini program, the various Apollo missions, Skylab, the Hubble Space Telescope, International Space Station as well as the tragedies of the Challenges and the Columbia. 

“It’s no accident that the main theme is called ’Heroes’,” explains the composer about his themes. ”The risks that the first astronauts took were extraordinary – they were indeed heroes and deserved a heroic theme. But in addition to the astronauts’ jeopardy, the music also had to reflect the beauty and tranquility of space. Astronauts almost universally describe the ‘Overview Effect‘, the overwhelming and emotional experience of seeing the Earth for the first time as a tiny, fragile rock suspended in space. Three of tracks in the album have the word ‘home‘ in the title – and ultimately the score is predominantly about the Earth, our home.” The score was recorded at Air Lyndhurst, orchestrated and conducted by Benjamin Wallfisch.

Richard Blair-Oliphant has scored more than 50 film and television projects to date. His film credits include The All Together starring Martin Freeman, the found footage flick The Dinosaur Project, and Blindsight for Oscar-nominated director Lucy Walker. In television he is best-known for period dramas (Moonshot, The Relief of Belsen, 1066). His score for Discovery’s When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions was nominated for an Emmy award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Music and Sound at the 30th annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards. In conjunction with When We Left Earth, MovieScore Media releases another documentary score by the composer, The Life of Earth.

MMS19043 • DISCOVERY COLLECTION VOLUME 19
WHEN WE LEFT EARTH: THE NASA MISSIONS (Original Television Soundtrack)
Music Composed by RICHARD BLAIR-OLIPHANT
Release date (digital): December 27, 2019

TRACK LIST

1 Heroes 2:55
2 Speed 1:49
3 EVA 2:16
4 Drowning 2:02
5 Empty Space 2:58
6 Training 2:19
7 Leaving Home 1:48
8 Lift Off 2:35
9 Floating 2:33
10 Pressure 1:20
11 God Speed 3:34
12 Waiting 2:15
13 Rendezvous 1:29
14 Tension 2:17
15 Mission 3:10
16 Parachute 2:17
17 Sunrise 1:38
18 Coming Home 2:05
19 The Future 2:34
20 Welcome Home 2:14