Hypermusic Prologue

Inspired by her book, Warped Passages, composer Hèctor Parra approached author and physicist Lisa Randall with an idea. Could her work on multidimensional quantum theory become a musical love story?

In 1905 Albert Einstein proposed his theory of special relativity, which added a fourth dimension – time – to the three dimensions of Cartesian geometry. In the years that followed, physicists have suggested the existence of up to 22 further dimensions. In her book, Warped Passages, one of the world’s leading physicists, Professor Lisa Randall, explains and explores the exciting questions that nature’s many dimensions pose for us and our universe.

Inspired by her book, and with the support of the AVL Cultural Foundation, composer Hèctor Parra approached Randall with an idea. Could her work on multidimensional quantum theory become a musical love story? In which dimension could the ideas proposed in Warped Passages become an operatic romance, and what would that work look and sound like?

The resulting collaboration between the physicist and the composer is Hypermusic Prologue. A story of love and science, it is presented as a mixed-media audio-visual experiment that asks where does the love felt by the characters of Ellette and Bobby fit within the measurable multidimensional universes of contemporary science?