Leonardo Barilaro Breaks New Cosmic Ground With Zero Gravity, Note One EP
With Zero Gravity, Note One, Malta-based Italian aerospace engineer, pianist, and boundary-breaking visionary Leonardo Barilaro elevates the concept of “space music” from metaphor to lived experience. This three-track EP is not only a technical milestone, the world’s first musical project recorded during a parabolic flight, but also a profound meditation on how human creativity behaves when gravity, our oldest reference point, is suddenly removed. True to its title, Zero Gravity, Note One is a bold opening chapter in a new artistic frontier.
Barilaro, widely known as The Space Pianist, has long pursued the dream of performing the first-ever piano concert in space, and this EP represents a major step toward that ambition. Recorded aboard a modified Cessna 182 during a G0 Flight parabolic mission, the project is an extraordinary fusion of aerospace engineering and expressive musicianship. Using a ROLI Piano M mounted on a custom-built support system, he performed in shifting conditions ranging from hypergravity to complete weightlessness, turning the cabin into a functioning microgravity laboratory.
The EP begins with “Star Wars (zero-g piano)”, an exhilarating tribute performed mid-flight as gravitational forces fluctuated. The result is a piece that feels physically untethered, phrasing stretches and compresses subtly, mirroring the body’s instinctive adjustments during freefall. Its energy captures the surreal exhilaration of drifting between forces greater than oneself.
Next comes “SCRAT (zero-g)”, a work rooted in Barilaro’s early aerospace journey. Inspired by his 2010 SCRAT mission that reached the stratosphere, this track carries a sense of legacy and propulsion. Pulsing textures and fluid melodic lines evoke ascent, descent, and the scientific curiosity that has shaped his career.
The EP concludes with “Note One”, a raw improvisation created in real time under microgravity. It stands as the emotional core of the project, fragile, exploratory, and deeply human. Barilaro’s spontaneous responses to shifting physical conditions create a sonic document of presence, vulnerability, and adaptation.
Beyond its experimental value, Zero Gravity, Note One is significant because it shows what space art can become: not merely themed compositions, but works shaped directly by extraterrestrial environments. Barilaro’s previous achievements music streamed from the ISS, collaborations with Tina Guo and Steve Mazzaro, and his record-setting “Space Piano Music Everyday” project, have cemented him as a leading figure in this movement. This EP extends that legacy with authenticity and scientific rigor.
In Zero Gravity, Note One, Barilaro proves that innovation doesn’t require massive budgets, only vision, resilience, and the courage to leap literally into the unknown. This release is not just an EP; it is the first chapter of a new musical language born in weightlessness, and a compelling milestone on the path toward the first-ever concert in space.
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