Published: 11:42 AM, 17 September 2026
Indian singer Joi Barua features in NASA-aligned musical project
Popular Indian singer-composer Joi Barua has joined an international collaboration that brings together NASA astrophysics and the performing arts, helping translate the wonder of the cosmos into music through two pivotal songs.
The initiative links NASA’s COSI mission, led by principal investigator John Tomsick at the University of California, Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory, with the global orchestral and multimedia project “Cosmic Rhapsody”, Hindustan Times reports.
“Cosmic Rhapsody” was conceived by storytelling and songwriting duo Susan Lim and Christina Teenz Tan, with French composer Manu Martin serving as the chief composer, orchestrator and arranger of the entire orchestral work, says Assam-born Barua.
Barua, who has worked as a playback singer, vocal arranger and background singer on films including “Agent Vinod”, “Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara”, “DevD”, “Munna Bhai MBBS” and “Lage Raho Munna Bhai”, says India has a deep cultural reverence for both the cosmos and music, alongside a strong tradition of scientific achievement through ISRO.
"To contribute as an Indian composer to a project partnering with NASA's COSI mission is humbling. It sends a message to young dreamers across India: logic and imagination belong together. When you unite science and the performing arts, your canvas becomes the universe itself," he says.
Barua also sang the popular song "O Meri Laila" from the 2018 film Laila Majnu. In 2014, he composed a song for Shonali Bose’s film “Margarita with a Straw”.
The new collaboration is designed as an immersive performing arts experience that combines live symphonic music, cinematic animation and pop songs. Its story follows a fictional partnership between a human and an AI as they travel into space in search of solutions to Earth’s environmental crisis.
