Introduction
Dr. Fiorella Terenzi is an intelligent and lovely woman who has an impressive (and varied) resume for someone so young. After a rigorous training at Universita Milano in physics and astrophysics, and a thorough musical training in opera and other forms of music, she combined the two educations in her doctoral thesis. The thesis describes "galactic" methods to set galactic radio waves to sound. Terenzi then taught mathematics and physics for 3 years at Milan's Liceo Scientifico while she explored this new musical form. She moved to the United States when Island Records signed her as a recording artist.
Now she is breaking new ground in teaching astronomy. Her method is a popular, multimedia method, using her own music, her own visions and her own sex-appeal to grab you at the emotional level. One might consider her an entrepreneur/pioneer of sorts, using the entertainment industry to promote and support her idea of astronomy. The entertainer Dennis Miller called her "a cross between Carl Sagan and Madonna"! Her career is certainly taking off now. Last year Time magazine wrote a paragraph with a full-page picture of her in their special issue: "Welcome to Cyberspace." Her first release on Island Records: Music from the Galaxies was enthusiastically received, she collaborated with Thomas Dolby on two tracks for the computer graphics music and video: The Gate to the Mind's Eye, and her CD-ROM multimedia astronomy project: Invisible Universe is now being released by the Voyager Company. She has also recently signed with the William Morris agency for public appearances.
On 26 December 1995, I had the pleasure of spending a long evening talking with Fiorella about her philosophy, her goals, her history. It was our second meeting. This article is the result of a synthesis of a number of ideas that she and I discussed that evening, and it's a tribute to her that I was inspired enough by that meeting to write this long article, that you are reading now. This essay is one of the most enjoyable essays I've written in a long while.
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