Photo by Dean Bartolo

The space music composition “Maleth” by pianist and aerospace engineer Leonardo Barilaro is now available online, after being on the International Space Station for one month, following the successful launch from Cape Canaveral on 14th July 2022, onboard SpaceX CRS25 rocket launch. It was broadcasted to Earth on 15 August, when the ISS was flying over Malta.Maleth on Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/track/22EADn2xkrsOX4XAjdmjPL?si=1e0490475b3f4b4f

Maleth (official videoclip) – https://youtu.be/-sXhPK3budo

Dr Barilaro, Italian from Venice and in Malta since 7 years, is also Senior Lecturer in Aerospace Engineering at MCAST and joined forces with Professor Joseph Borg of University of Malta. “Maleth”, which is the name of the running program taking bioscience missions to space and title of the composition, is the ancient Phoenician term for Malta, and the idea of bringing the music in space has risen from the desire of inspiring people and spread awareness about this new era for mankind, on the path of becoming a multi-planetary species.
The music has been stored on the mission computer, the experiment was placed on the ISS by
astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, and accessed from the mission control room in Malta and broadcasted from Space in a special event.
The composition, for piano and synth, can be described as J.S. Bach, Hans Zimmer and Isaac Asimov relaxing and having a dreamy chat together during a summer night with a sky full of bright stars. As humans we are a self-aware species buzzing around hoping for the best and messing up things. Very rarely we try to do something meaningful, like striving for space travel to become a multi- planetary animal with an extra chance of survival.
Maleth is a symbol of this logarithmic marathon.

The music has been recorded at Jorquera Pianos, official Steinway&Sons dealer, that sponsored the music project making available and preparing specifically for the occasion a majestic Steinway model D, featured in the official videoclip, which went online yesterday. This day was chosen since there it coincides with the launch of Artemis to the Moon, setting up a new milestone for humanity.
Leonardo shares with people a Dream, where the impossible becomes possible. And what was science- fiction in the past now is a reality.
Professor Borg is a molecular geneticist that started the Maleth Program with the SpaceOMIX mission. The primary scope of the research mission is to target and study human skin samples in space, planning in the future missions to the deeper space such as Moon and Mars.
Leonardo, known as the Space Pianist, as next step is planning to go to Space and stream a concert
directly from there.