Weekend Reviews : Music Review : Aldrin’s Appearance Casts Moon Glow on Bowl Concert

A prolonged standing ovation greeted former astronaut Buzz Aldrin at the Hollywood Bowl on Friday night. The American hero, who made history with Neil Armstrong in their 1969 Apollo 11 moon walk, was the star VIP in “From the Bowl to the Moon--and Beyond!,” the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra’s celebration of the men and women who have boldly gone where no one has gone before.

Conducted by George Daugherty (also the concert’s executive producer), the “Family Fun” salute to NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which repeated Saturday, was an uneven but frequently thrilling pastiche of music, big-screen video and narration.

It was highlighted by Aldrin’s presence and by Gustav Holst’s evocative symphonic classic, “The Planets,” accompanied by extraordinary film, stills and computer animation of planets, galaxies, nebulae, comets and an array of ingenious man-made space hardware in action.

Aldrin’s entrance, preceded by an indelible image from Tom Hanks’ 12-hour HBO epic, “From the Earth to the Moon,” showing Aldrin outside the Gemini 12 spacecraft with the Earth and moon reflected in his mirrored visor, was a show-stopper.

A pleasant, Vegas-y “Moon Medley,” sung by husky-voiced pop veteran Gogi Grant, was understandably less involving; Grant’s rendition of Kurt Weill’s haunting “Lost in the Stars,” with guitarist Barry Pohlmann, went deeper.

Aldrin returned to read “A Free Man’s World,” the official poem of the Society of Test Pilots; he was joined by NASA Shuttle pilot Janice Voss, reading John G. Megee Jr.’s stirring poem, “High Flight.” Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” was the fitting orchestral component. (Mercury mission astronaut L. Gordon Cooper was scheduled to read the Megee poem Saturday.)

Sensuous opera star Julia Migenes offered an exquisite rendering of Dvorak’s “Song to the Moon” from “Rusalka”; Donna Shirley, retired manager of JPL’s Mars Exploration Program did some space boosting, and she and other NASA and JPL scientists, engineers, designers and others were recognized for their contributions.

Although it came a little late in the evening for some families who decamped with their sleepy offspring before the concert was over, Holst’s majestic “The Planets,” narrated by Aldrin, accompanied by NASA and JPL visuals, and dedicated to the crews of the tragic Apollo I and Challenger missions, was a transporting, inspirational finale. For starry-eyed space buffs, it hardly mattered that overhead, barely a twinkle could be seen in Friday’s cloud-shrouded night sky.