Andres Orozco-Estrada's First Recording with the Houston Symphony Out on DVD & Blu-ray

From the home city of manned spaceflight, the Houston Symphony announced today that it has released The Earth-An HD Odyssey on DVD and Blu-ray. The Earth-An HD Odyssey is the highly anticipated second installment of the Symphony's groundbreaking HD Odyssey film trilogy and Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada's first recording release with the Houston Symphony. This DVD/Blu-ray release follows the world premiere live performance of The Earth-An HD Odyssey in February of 2012 at Jones Hall.

Developed in conjunction with Duncan Copp, celebrated documentary filmmaker of projects for BBC, PBS/Nova and National Geographic, The Earth-An HD Odyssey uses the timeless music of American composer John Adams' Short Ride in a Fast Machine and Richard Strauss' epic tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra (featured in 2001: A Space Odyssey) as a musical accompaniment for striking, high-definition video and images of Earth from NASA's shuttle missions, the International Space Station and satellites orbiting Earth. In the live concert version, these incredible images are projected on a large screen over the stage as the orchestra performs the musical score live to tell an awe-inspiring story of our home planet's land, sea and sky.

"In just 40 minutes, you can experience a whole plethora of emotions," said film producer Duncan Copp. "You can sense the frenetic final seconds before a launch and the crackling thrust which punches you through a tentative atmosphere into unimaginable blackness. You can drift over cyan oceans of belittling immensity and mountain ranges of epic grandeur. You can witness the violent power of tropical storms and huge thunder clouds in tranquil silence. You can see more than most see in a lifetime. You can experience all these things in just 40 minutes; half the time it takes to revolve once around the Earth."

The Earth-An HD Odyssey DVD and Blu-ray are available online at www.houstonsymphony.org and at the Houston Symphony store located in the lobby of Jones Hall. The Earth-An HD Odyssey is also available for viewing now through January 31, 2015, on select United Airlines long distance flights as part of the in-flight entertainment lineup offered to passengers.

"This project is wonderful for attracting a broad and diverse audience," said Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada. "Richard Strauss' 'Zarathustra' is some of the most profound, philosophical and epic music ever written, and it fits very powerfully with the spectacular images from space. I look forward to conducting and recording The Cosmos -An HD Odyssey, the next and final installment in the three-part series, in the spring of 2016, which will feature Dvo?ák's New World Symphony set to NASA images of galaxies in our universe."

Executive Director/CEO of the Symphony, Mark Hanson, comments that "The HD Odyssey series is one of the Symphony's innovative initiatives aimed at making music more relevant and accessible to music lovers in Houston and beyond, while collaborating with important and iconic Houston institutions such as NASA. Audiences have been drawn in to this powerful combination of music and imagery, and we are grateful to producer Duncan Copp, NASA, our exceptional musicians and all who have worked so hard to make this series a reality."

The Earth-An HD Odyssey follows the success of the first installment of the hit series, The Planets-An HD Odyssey, a tour of our solar system that beautifully marries NASA's high definition planetary imagery with performances of Holst's ever-popular suite The Planets. This first installment of the HD Odyssey film series, commissioned and conducted by then Music Director and current Conductor Laureate Hans Graf, is the most successful production in the 100 year of the history of the Houston Symphony, having resulted in glowing reviews, sold-out concerts, a well-received UK tour and more than 5,000 DVD/Blu-ray discs sold.

Furthermore, the Houston Symphony's The Planets has been licensed and performed by 26 orchestras around the world, including the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra, the Sidney Symphony Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic, extending the orchestra's reach nationally and internationally. The Planets remains available online at Amazon.com and www.houstonsymphony.org as well as via the Apple and Android app stores through a newly released content app featuring the full film product.

The Earth-An HD Odyssey is available on DVD and Blu-ray online for $25 and $35 respectively. An Earth and Planets media bundle is also available online at www.houstonsymphony.org for $35 (DVD) and $55 (Blue-ray).

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