Composed between 2004 and 2011, Musical Explorations of the Messier Catalogue of Star Clusters and Nebulae is Bruce Lazarus’ series of fourteen piano pieces based on the work of Charles Messier (1730-1817), a French astronomer who compiled a list of approximately 110 diffuse objects in the night sky, objects which in Messier’s day were often confused with comets but now are recognized as familiar objects such as as the Andromeda Galaxy, The Pleiades, Orion Nebula, and the Globular Cluster in Hercules. Recent Hubble telescope photos of Messier Objects reveal vistas of extraordinary beauty and also great variation in energy patterning – spiraling, floating, exploding, diffusing – which strongly suggest musical variations in rhythm, texture, formal design, and melodic elements.