Worcester’s Jennifer Walshe talks to Katie Derham for the BBC World Service about writing her new opera set on Mars.

Professor Jennifer Walshe, Fellow & Tutor in Music and Professor of Composition, was born in Dublin and is considered one of the world’s most bold and imaginative contemporary classical composers. Whether finding inspiration in Barbie dolls or recipe books, the mundane and strange materials of life are central to Walshe’s work. Now, for the Irish National Opera, she is developing a major new work set on Mars.

Walshe’s opera will respond to astrophysics data, Martian meteorites, trashy sci-fi, eco-anxiety in young people, and tech billionaires’ obsession with conquering space. Broadcaster Katie Derham tracks Walshe for the In the Studio programme as she launches into the project – beginning in her office at Worcester – with months of immersive intergalactic research. Derham then finds Walshe in her North London home studio, trying to turn Mars into music.

Find about more about Jennifer’s work at Worcester, from teaching composition to running open tutorials on AI, in Issue 28 of the Worcester Magazine.

Listen now on BBC Sounds