June 29th, 2024 8:30pm
Performer: White Album Ensemble Chamber Orchestra
Astronomy Speaker: Dr. Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz
White Album Ensemble Chamber Orchestra
The original White Album Ensemble was a 5-10 piece ensemble that covered Beatles music, but Beatles music that was never performed live. The Beatles stopped touring in 1966, and began a recording career that yielded the “classics of our time” from “Rubber Soul,” to “Sgt. Peppers,” to “Abbey Road.” For 2023, a few members of the original White Album Ensemble have created the White Album Ensemble Chamber Orchestra to perform instrumental versions of Beatles and other bands of the time period’s music, wonderfully suited to Lick Observatory’s unique venue.
“A must-see show for Beatles fans…”
— Santa Cruz Sentinel
“…musically, they were tighter than a hangman’s noose… an excellent performance…”
— Metro Santa Cruz
Visit White Album Ensemble for more information about the original group.
Lecture Information
Dr. Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz (UC Santa Cruz)
“The Universe in Us”
Dr. Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz is a Professor and the Vera Rubin Presidential Chair at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). After studying at the University of Cambridge, he was the John Bahcall Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Since joining the UCSC faculty in 2007, Ramirez-Ruiz has won a number of awards for his research, including a Packard Fellowship, the NSF CAREER Award, the Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard, the Niels Bohr Professorship from the Danish National Research Foundation, the HEAD Mid-Career Prize from the AAS and the Bouchet Award and the Dwight Nicholson Medal from the American Physical Society. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences, California Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Professor Ramirez-Ruiz is eager to understand our origins and disruptive events in the night sky. He works with computer models to understand the cataclysmic death of stars and recently led efforts to uncover the origin of the heaviest elements in the universe. Ramirez-Ruiz tests out his theories with complex computer simulations that defy the boundaries of human experience and the assumptions we make about the universe.
He has authored or co-authored about two hundred and eighty research papers, two dozen in Science and Nature. He has lectured, broadcast and written widely on science and is a highly decorated teacher and research adviser. As the director of the Lamat Institute, he works vigorously to support the promotion and retention of women and historically marginalized students in STEM.
Ticket Information
Tickets can be purchased at Eventbrite starting April 17, 2024 at Noon.
Join Friends of Lick Observatory (FoLO) and Get Tickets Early
If you’d like to purchase tickets as early as noon on April 10th, 2024, join our Friends of Lick Observatory (FoLO) program by March 1st, 2024. As a thank you for supporting the observatory, you’ll get special access to purchase tickets before they go on sale for the general public.
More information about tickets and pricing is available at Music of the Spheres.
Program Information
| 7:30 pm | Doors Open | Brief Telescope Visits |
| 8:30 pm | Concert, Main Hall | |
| 9:30 pm | Science Talk, Lecture Hall | Telescope Viewings |
| 10:30 pm | Science Talk (repeated), Lecture Hall | Telescope Viewings |
| 1:00 am | Doors Close |
Gift shop is open from 7:30pm-8:30pm, and reopens after the concert until 11:30pm.
More general information about the event is available at Music of the Spheres.