From Assamese folk to NASA's Cosmic Rhapsody: Joi Barua takes his music to the stars
Assamese musician Joi Barua has composed key songs for Cosmic Rhapsody, an independent production linked thematically to NASA's COSI mission. The collaboration places an Assamese musician within a global work where storytelling, science and stardust converge.
Long before NASA entered the picture, Joi Barua had already been listening to the universe in his own way. There were the folk sounds of Assam, the violin his father gave him at four, the Beatles and Sting, Bhupen Hazarika and U2. Decades later, those many influences have found an unexpected new home: a story about a dying star, scattered stardust and the possibility of new worlds. Now, as the Assamese musician goes cosmic, becoming a part of the NASA-linked project Cosmic Rhapsody, let's know more about him.
Barua, the Assam-born singer, songwriter and composer, is one of the Indian artists at the heart of Cosmic Rhapsody, an international performing-arts production that has developed a thematic connection with NASA’s Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) mission. He composed the melodies for two of its central songs, Star Among the Cosmic Clouds and Confetti Storm, the latter later becoming Confetti Star-Ion in a collaboration with French composer and arranger Manu Martin.
The songs were written by Susan Lim, and their imagery is strikingly close to the science being explored by COSI. The mission studies soft gamma rays released by cosmic events such as supernovae, helping scientists understand how stars create the elements that eventually make up life and the universe.
It’s a beautiful coincidence, but an important distinction remains: Cosmic Rhapsody is not a NASA production. Its connection to COSI grew from a shared fascination with what happens when a star dies and scatters the material from which something new might emerge.
From a violin in Assam to Mumbai studios
Barua’s own story has a similar sense of movement. Born Jayanta Barua in Digboi, Assam, he received a violin from his father when he was four. A few years later, after his family moved to Jorhat, his sister taught him Cliff Richard’s Bachelor Boy and pushed him on to a competition stage. He won.
His school principal, Sister Mabilia, encouraged him too. So did the musical world around him. Assamese folk music and Bhupen Hazarika sat comfortably alongside the Beatles, Sting and U2 in his growing musical vocabulary. Classical composers, A R Rahman and L Subramaniam added more colours to the mix.
After studying in Shillong and Guwahati, Barua eventually moved to Mumbai, with help from fellow Assamese musician Zubeen Garg. The city gave him a different kind of education. He started with advertising jingles for brands including Vodafone, Nescafe, Reliance and LG before moving into background vocals and playback singing.
His voice and compositions later found their way into films such as Dev.D, Udaan, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, Agent Vinod and the Munna Bhai films. He also worked on Margarita with a Straw and Laila Majnu. As the lead vocalist of his band Joi, he released the Assamese album Joi: Looking Out of the Window, winning Best Newcomer Vocalist at the Big Assamese Music Awards.
A local voice on a cosmic stage
Music, however, has never been the only thread running through Barua’s work. He has spoken about environmental protection in Assam, particularly the need to safeguard its rainforests and indigenous identities.
His international journey had already begun with the ALAN musical project, the precursor to Cosmic Rhapsody. He recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road and became the first Assamese composer to have works performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Cosmic Rhapsody takes that journey several steps further. The second part of the ALAN Trilogy, created by physician-scientists and storytellers Susan Lim and Christina Teenz Tan, follows an AI-enabled companion, ALAN, who becomes an “ALANaut” and travels through space with a human partner. Its questions are earthly even when its setting isn't: planetary renewal, climate resilience and ecological healing.
The production brings together orchestral music, symphonic pop, animation and storytelling. Assamese artist Samudra Kajal Saikia provides the visuals, while Martin oversees the wider orchestral score.
Barua was among the first composers brought onto the project after Lim and Tan heard his earlier work. The COSI connection came later, following the creators’ visit to the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, where the mission is based under principal investigator John Tomsick.
Suddenly, the dying star at the centre of the story had a scientific echo.
And then there was the stardust
For Barua, the most moving part may be that the story doesn't require him to leave Assam behind. His melodies carry traces of where he began, even as they travel through orchestras, animation and a story about the universe.
He has described contributing to a project linked thematically with COSI as humbling, while pointing to India's long relationship with the cosmos through both culture and science.
That idea feels fitting for a musician whose journey began with a child's violin in Digboi. His work has travelled from Assamese traditions to Mumbai studios, from Abbey Road to international orchestras, and now to the Hollywood Bowl.
Cosmic Rhapsody is scheduled to premiere at the Hollywood Bowl on July 27, 2027, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, before NASA's planned COSI launch from Cape Canaveral.