[shimmery music] - I am at Yerkes Observatory, joining the Blackbird Creative Lab, who are bringing music into focus at this cosmic site.

[guitar swing music] I caught up with the directors of the lab, who are also founding members of the music group "Eighth Blackbird" to learn more.

- Lisa Kaplan: We really started talking about how can we bring together the pieces of all these different programs we've ourselves attended, to make our own program?

In 2017, we founded the Blackbird Creative Lab.

- Matthew Duvall: We look back at our struggles, the mistakes that we made, and the things that took us too long to learn.

We wanted to create a space that serves that demographic of emerging professionals.

- Angela: Wow, that's quite a journey, from you all as musicians now creating a space for other artists to engage with.

- Lisa: It's a very intense program, and it's designed to be that way.

We really wanted to develop the curriculum to what the cohort's needs were.

- And they're not asking about, "How do I compose music or how do I play my instrument?"

They're saying, "How do I manage my finances?

How do I read a contract?"

And this program is very intentionally geared toward the whole human of the emerging artist, not just performance.

And even this place, the Yerkes Observatory, is a teaching vehicle.

This is an extraordinarily unique concert hall.

- Lisa: I mean, it's not even a concert hall.

[Lisa and Angela laughing] - Exactly.

- And so, managing sound in an observatory is quite different.

- But I think too that our partnership with Yerkes has been so beautiful.

We are not creating work that's in the science field, which is what Yerkes is known for, but we hope that we're bringing in folks who are incredibly innovative in art.

[bright music] - Angela: Folks like composer Julia Moss and the group "Sputter Box" are cohorts of this year's program.

- Julia Moss: So I'm writing a piece called "Growing Pains."

It's about the mourning process of sort of growing and splitting off from old parts of yourself and how that can be nostalgic and scary and hard but also a positive thing for moving forward.

- That is interesting and relatable.

[laughs] - Yes.

[laughs] - So, what is it like creating in this specific space?

- We've really had an open and vulnerable process here.

I really think that this piece couldn't have been what it was if it wasn't in this space, together and also at the Yerkes Observatory it's so resonant and beautiful.

- Angela: From composition-- - How about we start from letter J-- - Angela: To practice... [playing mallets] ...to performance.

[ethereal music, singing indistinctly] The Blackbird Creative Lab offers emerging musicians an out-of-this-world space to create and play.

[bright music]