Since making her debut in the 1981 West End’s Cats, Brightman has become the world’s biggest selling soprano singer, sang at the Olympic Games twice, and sold more than thirty million worldwide. It would seem that the 51-year-old could begin to take it easy, but instead she opted to continue breaking new ground: Brightman will become the first artist to record a song in space.

Last year she finished a series of tests in Star City, Russia, to allow her to begin training as a cosmonaut. In 2015 she will join a three-person team to travel to the International Space Station as a UNESCO Artist for Peace ambassador. We learned from the first Aliens movie that, in space, no one can hear you scream. But can they hear you sing?

Brightman’s 11th album, Dreamchaser, is simultaneously a realization of her dreams when she began her career back in 1969 while watching the Apollo 11 moon landing on TV as a kid, and a culmination of her experiences while she prepares for this new journey. She’ll take Portland audiences for a test flight at McMenamins Edgefield on August 1 in a production that most reviews call out of this world. Tickets are now on sale.

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