Strelka [2004]

instrumentation: accordion, musical saw, harp, cimbalom, harpsichord, two pianos

duration 12'
premiered August 30, 2004
ceremonial opening of academic year 2004/05
Royal Conservatory, The Hague

One of the important aspects of space exploration is the research of the possibilities of living organisms’s survival off the planet Earth. The most famous ‘space dog’ is Laika, who in 1957 did not survive the Sputnik 2 mission she was a part of. Apart from microbes, one of the first live organisms who in 1960 survived a journey into space in Sputnik 5, was the dog Strelka (accompanied by the dog Belka, a rabbit, forty-two mice, two rats, insects, fungi and plants). All the animals and plants launched returned safely from space and thus became the first living beings to successfully accomplish such a thing.

Strelka won Irino Prize, Tokyo 2007