Dr. Leonardo Barilaro, the iconic Space Pianist, has returned once more to push the boundary between art and aerospace once again with the groundbreaking EP Zero Gravity, Note One, released 14 November 2025. This is no ordinary studio project—it’s the world’s first EP recorded during a parabolic flight, transforming a modified Cessna 182 into a zero-gravity music laboratory.
In collaboration with G0 Flight and supported by pilot Vittorio Braghiroli and a specialized engineering team, Barilaro performed on a ROLI Piano M while experiencing rapid shifts between weightlessness and hypergravity. The mission explored how creativity and human biomechanics respond when gravity’s familiar anchor disappears, a stepping stone toward Barilaro’s dream of performing the first piano concert in space. Already known for sending compositions to the ISS and collaborating with world-class artists, he continues expanding the frontier of Space Art with this daring release.
Anyway, once “Zero Gravity, Note One” begins, the first track, “Star Wars (zero-g piano),” transports you instantly into orbit. Light, trickling piano notes glimmer like star fragments drifting across an immersive backdrop. Slow beats pulse beneath, giving the piece a drifting, suspended quality, as if the listener is floating through nebulae. It has a cinematic tenderness and unmistakably exploratory tone, shaped by the unpredictable physics of microgravity.
Then “SCRAT (zero-g)” shifts the palette. Electronic textures glimmer and shimmer across soft, splashing cymbals, creating an airy, futuristic soundscape. The rhythm feels buoyant, almost playfully unstable, mirroring the experimental roots of the track, inspired by Barilaro’s early stratospheric mission in 2010.
Finally, “Note One” pushes deepest into the unknown. Mesmerizing, haunting, and mystical, it unfolds like a transmission from another realm. Atmospheric expanses open wide with sharp synth accents cutting through the haze. Drums rumble through the mystique, joined by mechanical pulses and textured noises that feel ripped straight from the parabolic flight cabin. It’s raw, instinctive improvisation—Barilaro’s emotional and physiological reactions captured in real time as gravity disappears.
In its entirety, “Zero Gravity, Note One” is both a scientific experiment and an artistic revelation, because when gravity drops away, imagination takes flight.
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Review by: Naomi Joan