| When | Saturday 21 November 2026 |
| Where | Oulu Cathedral, Oulu, Finland |
| Choir | Tuira Chamber Choir (Tuiran kamarikuoro) |
| Conductor | Satu Korpi, artistic director |
| Festival | Lumo Art & Tech Festival, during the Lumo Light Festival |
| Part of | The Logos, final chapter. thelogos.art |
About the piece
Somewhere far beyond our galaxy, billions of years ago, something tore open for a thousandth of a second and let out a flash of radio light. It has been travelling ever since.
Since Easter, thousands of these bursts have fallen through Oulu Cathedral in The Logos, messages with no sender, sounding from twelve loudspeakers into the nave. For months the cathedral has listened to them alone. On 21 November someone answers.
Thirty singers of the Tuira Chamber Choir stand among the audience, in two groups facing each other across a single candle beneath the dome, and sing back to the sky in Finnish while I play the bursts live. A sound in that building hangs in the air for seven seconds, so every voice leaves a long shadow behind it.
At the very end, one soprano sings one word into the dark. The cathedral holds it for seven seconds, and then lets it go. Somewhere out there, the light keeps travelling.
The bursts
Fast radio bursts are flashes of radio energy lasting a few thousandths of a second, arriving from galaxies far beyond our own. Every one you hear was caught by the CHIME telescope in British Columbia, Canada: 4,539 bursts from 3,641 sources, recorded between 2018 and 2023.
Text
The piece moves through five sections. The choir sings in Finnish.
| Section | Finnish | English |
|---|---|---|
| Edges | Kuule. | Listen. |
| Gathering | Valo tulee kaukaa. | The light comes from far away. |
| Rising | Tähtien takaa, ajan takaa. | From beyond the stars, from beyond time. |
| Return | Seisomme yhdessä pimeässä ja kuuntelemme valoa. | We stand together in the dark and listen to the light. |
| The Flame | Valo. | Light. |
Ikuinen valo. Lumen, valo.
Eternal light. Lumen, light.
Credits
- Composition, spatial design and live bursts: Andrew Melchior
- Choir: Tuira Chamber Choir (Tuiran kamarikuoro)
- Artistic director and conductor: Satu Korpi
- Fast radio burst data: CHIME/FRB Collaboration, with thanks to Kiyoshi Masui, MIT Kavli Institute
- Philosophical frame: Timothy Morton, Rice University
- FRBSynth instrument: Oliver Larkin
- Loudspeaker system: Genelec
- Photography: Anne Lygnegård
- Graphic design: Klaudia Kolbusz
- With thanks to Dean Satu Saarinen and Oulu Cathedral