Many people ask me why Stephen Hawking said that the festival starmus Is it “a ray of hope, (…) a unique space for debate for the future of the human race”? In the first edition we would have said that this hope was a dream, that of creating a unique meeting point with science, music and the stars. After celebrating our seventh Starmus, and in a context as turbulent as the current one, Hawking’s words make more sense than ever, and that is why we felt the obligation to dedicate this edition to the future of our planet.
Starmus was a dream that I had the opportunity to give shape to between 1999 and 2011 with the Queen guitarist – also a doctor in astrophysics – and currently my great friend Brian May. He helped me understand and focus that dream outside of the scientific environment — he is a person who would be able to represent the human race in a first meeting with aliens! After much debate about the idea and agreeing that we were both inspired by stars and music, almost without realizing it, we had given that dream a name: Starmus (acronym for stars and music, in English).
We celebrated the first edition in 2011 in Tenerife and La Palma. Nobody believed that Neil Armstrong was going to come to the islands to give a talk and participate in a 108-minute round table at the Gran Telescopio de Canarias! Neither did Brian May, or Richard Dawkins, among the many speakers who in the end we managed to get them to bet on that first Starmus. Much of that skepticism was due to the lack of institutional support. How was this festival going to succeed without political support and public financing or large companies?
It only took that edition for Stephen Hawking himself to feel inspired by Starmus, he even became a member of our advisory board and presented the festival’s candidacy for the Prince of Asturias Award. It was obvious that we weren’t going to win it, but he said: “Don’t worry, in a few years Starmus will win a more prestigious place in the world.” His involvement in the project was the fundamental impetus to dream big. Together we created the Stephen Hawking Medal, a new and prestigious recognition of the great work that many people are doing to build that bridge between science and society through music, cinema, and the plastic arts.
After the third edition in 2016, dedicated to Stephen Hawking, Starmus began its journey around the world and is currently considered “the most ambitious science communication festival in the world.” The major international newspapers have described it as something “out of this world”, like the “Glastonbury of science”.
Brian and I gave a lot of thought to the importance of science and the enormous power of music to create a unique event where participants can enjoy large doses of inspiration by learning the latest news in the world of science through talks from the brightest minds and enjoying performances by the great artistic talents of our time. A space and time where scientists, inventors, engineers and artists exchange ideas and create synergies. Like a science Olympics but without competition, or a Davos with the people who are making the truly great contributions to our society. Is it possible? we wondered.
That’s what made Stephen Hawking fall in love with Starmus; It is the only science and music festival whose main objective is to inspire the general public. He, the great scientific figure of the 20th-21st century, was inspired, at just 14 years old, by his mathematics teacher Dikran Tahta. Born into a family of Armenian immigrants who escaped the genocide, he went on to become a legendary professor in the United Kingdom who inspired an entire generation of English scientists. “He encouraged me to think creatively about mathematics. “He opened my eyes to mathematics as the blueprint of the universe itself,” Stephen told us. And that is the essence of Starmus, looking at science from inspiration.
I believe that Starmus has to play this same role—bringing thousands of students and children closer to meeting such inspiring figures as astronauts, Nobel Prize winners, inventors—and creating a new generation of future Stephen Hawkings.
That is the mission that we have imposed on ourselves since the fourth edition: Starmus is no longer “just” presentations and concerts, but we take science to the streets and to the academic field (universities, schools) with our Starmus Camp. And in this seventh edition we have promoted this more than ever: we have created a program for university students and schools with exhibitions, talks, workshops and outdoor presentations. We have also celebrated, for the first time, “Starmus4Schools”, an event aimed exclusively at children and adolescents between 5 and 17 years old who have had the opportunity to meet Jane Goodall and astronaut Chris Hadfield. A stadium with more than 3,500 kids!
We have just closed the seventh edition and we are collecting figures, but it certainly seems that Starmus has once again surpassed itself. Almost 100,000 people have participated in the last ‘Starmus Camp’ held in 2022 in Armenia, with more than 80 talks in schools and universities. Chris Hadfield himself confessed that he has seen many events in his life, but Starmus Armenia has been the most impressive in terms of its reach and impact on people. The same thing has happened to us these days in Slovakia; The universities reiterated to us that it is the largest dissemination event that the country has ever held.
We are especially excited about our seventh Starmus which we closed on Friday. We have managed to form the most inspiring and multidisciplinary debate on the future of our planet: we address the great climate challenge, Artificial Intelligence, the new space race, geopolitics, the future of energy and much more. And we have done it with an exceptional godmother, Jane Goodall, who is already a member of the Starmus Advisory Board and winner of the Stephen Hawking Medal in 2022. She is not only pure inspiration, but has hope as the epicenter of her legacy , something that reconnects us with Hawking’s idea about Starmus (the ray of hope).
The festival started with a cosmic concert by Jean-Michel Jarre with a special performance by Brian May with which we undoubtedly marked a milestone by bringing together on stage, for the first time in their many decades of career, these two great legends of music. These are the things that only happen in Starmus! More than 100,000 people gathered in Bratislava, at this great musical event, to celebrate the beginning of Starmus.
Our 4-day program of presentations has brought eight Nobel Prize winners such as Kip Thorne, Michel Mayor and Emmanuelle Charpentier to Bratislava; astronauts like Charlie Duke, Kathryn Thornton, Chris Hadfield and Garret Reisman; entrepreneurial visionaries like Tony Fadell; great voices of the energy future such as Pietro Barabaschi and many more top-level figures.
Furthermore, another of the musical novelties that we have brought this year is that our Stephen Hawking Medal ceremony and our most emblematic concert – Sonic Universe Concert – has debuted with punk-rock with the iconic The Offspring. The concert gave attendees another unique moment with a very special performance; For the first time, The Offspring shared the stage with Brian May. Again; Only at Starmus do these collaborations occur!
Without a doubt, I can say with satisfaction that this seventh edition has consolidated our mission of bringing science to the general public and inspiring a new generation of scientists, inventors and artists. It is almost overwhelming to see how that dream has managed to fly so high for Hans Zimmer himself to say “forget the Oscars! Starmus is the event to come to!”
Now that the festival is not only flying high, but is already consolidating a trajectory with a great horizon, many ask me: “Will Starmus return to the Canary Islands one day?”
After four editions away, there is a real possibility that the festival will return to where, and for where, it was designed. The Canary Islands. More than two years ago, the Government of Spain sent three million euros to the Government of the Canary Islands, within the Funds for the Recovery of La Palma.
After more than two years of submitting documentation, after obtaining the latest extension for the availability of funds, and after having the proposal presented by the organizers approved, there is now a risk of losing the opportunity to return to the island, due to of the bureaucracy that surrounds this type of funds.
Usually the organizers present the venue for the next edition, at the end of the current edition, and despite all the efforts on the part of the High Commissioner for the recovery of La Palma, the Cabildo of La Palma as well as the organizers, to receive the money before the start of Starmus VII in Bratislava, it has been bureaucratically impossible.
Five delegations from cities and countries interested in hosting the next editions of Starmus attended Bratislava and, although La Palma is a priority for us, we have to look at the future of the festival, its continuity and its stability. Let’s see if the illusion of returning to the islands manages to illuminate the black hole where the “file” for the allocation of funds is located.
You can follow SUBJECT in Facebook, x and instagramor sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
#Starmus