Zvezdochka in Orbit was commissioned by cellist Ernst Simon Glaser, and was premiered by him in 2009 with the Norwegian Navy Band conducted by Peter Szilvay. The title refers to the last of the dogs that the Soviet Union sent into orbit, only a few weeks before Gagarin became the first man in space. In the beginning the floating cello voice sounds foreign and lamenting, always in glissando, like the moaning of a little dog out in space. Or perhaps it sounds like a troubled human conscience that feels infinitely small in the universe, struggling to gain more knowledge.