Joi Barua takes India's sound to the stars with NASA-linked project

Indian singer-composer Joi Barua is taking the science of exploding stars from NASA's astrophysics labs to the stage with Cosmic Rhapsody, an international orchestral and multimedia project connecting space science with performing arts.

According to a PTI report, the Assam-born musician has composed the melodies for two key songs in the project — Star Among the Cosmic Clouds and Confetti Storm — and co-composed Confetti Star-Ion with French composer Manu Martin.

The project is linked to NASA's COSI (Compton Spectrometer and Imager) mission, led by principal investigator John Tomsick at the University of California, Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory. COSI is designed to study soft gamma rays and help map where elements such as iron and aluminium are created in exploding stars.


The connection between the music and the science emerged when the creators of Cosmic Rhapsody visited the Space Sciences Laboratory.

The project's story follows a fictional human and an AI travelling into space in search of solutions to Earth's environmental crisis. It combines live orchestral music, animation and pop songs into an immersive performing arts experience.

Barua said the project's themes around supernovae and stardust closely mirror the science being explored by COSI.

“To contribute as an Indian composer to a project partnering with NASA's COSI mission is humbling,” Barua said, according to PTI. He said the collaboration showed how science and imagination could come together, particularly for young people in India.

From supernova to song

One of the project's central ideas is that a star's death in a supernova can help create the conditions for new worlds. Barua said this idea shaped his approach to Star Among the Cosmic Clouds and Confetti Storm.

Rather than treating a stellar explosion as an ending, he said he approached it as an act of creation, drawing on the imagery of stardust scattering through space.

Martin, who is the chief composer, orchestrator and arranger of the larger Cosmic Rhapsody orchestral work, also collaborated with Barua on Confetti Star-Ion.

Barua described that collaboration as a fusion of mission-control recordings, orchestral music and pop, with the music attempting to evoke the impact of a cosmic shockwave.

Hollywood Bowl, then space

The collaboration will have two major milestones.

Cosmic Rhapsody is scheduled to premiere at the Hollywood Bowl on July 27, 2027, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. The NASA COSI mission is then slated for an orbital launch from Cape Canaveral.

The project also has a strong Assam connection. Animator and director Samudra Kajal Saikia, who is also from Assam, is working on the project's visuals.

Barua said Saikia's animation translates the musical dynamics of the exploding star and the scattering of cosmic dust into visuals, making the involvement of two artists from Assam a particularly meaningful part of the project.

Barua has previously worked as a playback singer, vocal arranger and background singer on films including Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, DevD, Agent Vinod, Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. and Lage Raho Munna Bhai. He also sang the radio version of O Meri Laila from Laila Majnu and composed a song for Margarita with a Straw.