Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Moving from delicate, cold and sparse, to warm and floating, Madeline Butler’s ‘Earthrise’ is a thoughtful depiction of what it might be like to look down on the Earth from space. Her music is set to words by Joanna Preston, which paint a poetic, other-wordly picture of an astronaut’s experience.
Tethered by a thought as much as by the slender umbilical
Half a metre for every year of his life
He hangs in space above the slow turning planet
Tiny as a moth
Orbiting a street lamp at the end of a deserted road
Houses guarded by ranks of sullen weeds
Snowflakes drifting through a broken gable
Shards of glass dulling in the sodden carpet
And everywhere the mist - a grey tide gathering
Broken only by the stanchion, its sallow sodium glow
The moth’s ragged circling
And the astronaut staring down into the well of clouds and weather
The gold flash from his visor
As he bends to take the earth’s confession
Performed by the Jubilate Singers, conductor Philip Norman, at The Piano, 24 August 2025.
Audio recorded by Alex van den Broek. Filmed and edited by Chris Watson for SOUNZ. Film funded by NZ On Air.
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Learn more about the composers and performers of music from Aotearoa New Zealand on our website (sounz.org.nz), or by following us on Facebook (@SOUNZnz), Instagram (@sounz_nz), or TikTok (@sounz_nz).
#nzmusic
Moving from delicate, cold and sparse, to warm and floating, Madeline Butler’s ‘Earthrise’ is a thoughtful depiction of what it might be like to look down on the Earth from space. Her music is set to words by Joanna Preston, which paint a poetic, other-wordly picture of an astronaut’s experience.
Tethered by a thought as much as by the slender umbilical
Half a metre for every year of his life
He hangs in space above the slow turning planet
Tiny as a moth
Orbiting a street lamp at the end of a deserted road
Houses guarded by ranks of sullen weeds
Snowflakes drifting through a broken gable
Shards of glass dulling in the sodden carpet
And everywhere the mist - a grey tide gathering
Broken only by the stanchion, its sallow sodium glow
The moth’s ragged circling
And the astronaut staring down into the well of clouds and weather
The gold flash from his visor
As he bends to take the earth’s confession
Performed by the Jubilate Singers, conductor Philip Norman, at The Piano, 24 August 2025.
Audio recorded by Alex van den Broek. Filmed and edited by Chris Watson for SOUNZ. Film funded by NZ On Air.
--
Learn more about the composers and performers of music from Aotearoa New Zealand on our website (sounz.org.nz), or by following us on Facebook (@SOUNZnz), Instagram (@sounz_nz), or TikTok (@sounz_nz).
#nzmusic
