ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – For the first time in history, an astronaut played a violin up in space. Sarah Gillis played her violin onboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon earlier this month.

It was a historic performance accompanied by musicians on the ground in several different countries, and it required a special instrument.

Gillis turned to a shop in Albuquerque for an out-of-this-world instrument.

“It’s grown into the largest string shop in the country,” said Barbara Barber with Robertson & Sons Violin Shop. “We buy them, we sell them, we make them, we repair them, we do everything that has to do with bowed string instruments.  

The shop opened in 1971, and has produced hundreds of thousands of instruments for musicians all over the world, and one outside of this world.

“We’re just so happy that our violin was a part of that,” said Barber. 

SpaceX astronaut Sarah Gillis performed in a cosmic concert from Orbit earlier this month, becoming the first person to play a violin in space, but not just any violin.

“She especially wanted to take one by Christian Pedersen, because she had played several of his instruments,” Barber said. 

Pedersen has been making violins by hand at Robertson & Sons for decades now. But this violin is by far his most famous one yet.

“A lot of my violin maker friends have been teasing me greatly,” said Pedersen. “I’m just happy to be the right person at the right time” 

Pedersen says it took two years to get Gillis’ violin just right, and that’s because outer space is a new frontier.

“All the glues, adhesives and everything and every coating that went on the instrument, all of that had to be tested before it could actually, you know, go up into space,” Pedersen said. 

“They put these instruments into what looks like an oven. They actually did a bake out, which kind of horrified us,” said Barber. 

They also revealed Gillis had to perform with an extremely small bow. Which was one more challenge on top of the zero gravity.

“You kind of need to be grounded when you’re playing. And that, for me, would have been, would have been difficult, and then not having that, that weight of the bow, but she somehow, she pulled that off really well,” Barber said. 

Making history, one violin at a time.

“It was fantastic, you could not be more excited about what she was able to do,” said Pedersen.

Gillis played Rey’s theme from “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” 

The folks at Robertson & Sons say they donated the violin to Gillis, and she donated it back to them. They’re going to put some special designs on the back, and then auction it off to raise money for St. Jude’s Children Hospital.