Our President, Roger Pratt, experienced a curious circularity on Thursday night when attending a talk given by astronomer Professor Fred Watson.  He writes:

“I knew that Fred is very knowledgeable and experienced in musical matters and had a chat with him after the talk, hoping to steer the conversation towards music, with which I’m more familiar than astronomy.

“Fred astounded me by pulling a CD of Karl Jenkins’ Stella Natalis from his pocket. He had been to our concert on Saturday, and was blown away by it, both by the work itself, which he’d not heard before, and by the quality of the performance. He has been to our concerts before, and was particularly impressed by the St John Passion earlier this year.

“Fred is an exceptional character, who manages to combine being the foremost astronomer in Australia with an active interest in music. He is accomplished on the guitar, and has cooperated with various Australian composers in writing and producing musical works. Amongst other things, he worked with Ross Edwards to provide the libretto for Edwards’ Fourth Choral Symphony.

“It is high praise indeed from such a musical aficionado that he was so impressed by our Stella Natalis that as soon as he got home after the performance he went straight to his computer and downloaded a CD of it to get to know it better”.