Geneva Festival, 2004: Opened with the Big Bang, closed with Creation

In its 50th Anniversary year, CERN had the honour of opening and closing this year's Geneva Festival.

The Geneva Festival traditionally opens with a bang, but this year's was the biggest yet. On 30 July, on a warm summer's evening by Lake Geneva, several tons of fireworks replayed the early history of the Universe.

Starting with the Big Bang, the display had acts representing inflation, the breaking of symmetries, the clash of antimatter and matter, hadrons and nucleosynthesis, the first atoms and the Universe becoming transparent, and the formation of stars and planets.
It was a challenge to translate these very abstract ideas into more than a thousand kilograms of TNT of different colour. But, set to the music of The Matrix, Alan Parsons, and Jurassic Park, one of the most spectacular physics presentations ever staged dazzled the audience of two hundred thousand spectators.
CERN physicist Rolf Landua, who scripted the narrative and worked with the pyrotechnicians on the realization, said: "From the many enthusiastic (and emotional) comments that I received from spectators (both from CERN and from outside), I got the impression that we have really touched on an important means of communicating science, by creating emotions. "
CERN was also involved at the end of the festival, with the CERN choir performing Haydn's Creation, an oratorio in 3 parts. The choirists joined with the Choir Pro Musica of Annecy, and were accompanied by the New Orchestra of Geneva.
The excellent performance took place at the Grand Casino under the direction of Gonzalo Martinez, who regularly conducts both choirs. The CERN choir consists of staff members and their families and performs twice a year. Soloists for this performance were Adriana Fernandez (soprano), Jeff Martin (tenor) and Werner van Mechelen (bass).
Music lovers who missed the show can enjoy repeat performances on 15 October at Annecy and 16 October at 8.30p.m. at the Forum de Meyrin.

http://www.cern.ch/cern50