David Ibbett, Ph.D. is a composer, educator and musical advocate for science. Based in Boston, he directs the Multiverse Concert Series, a project that combines music and science in live performance. His lifelong passion for science began with his father, Dr. Roger Ibbett, who is a research chemist in Nottingham, UK. 

In 2020, David was the first Guest Composer at Fermilab, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. He is now resident composer at Mindmics biotech.

David composes electrosymphonic music: a fusion of classical and electronic styles that interweaves influences from songs, symphonies, pop, rock and electronica. Musical strands are met with inspiration from the work of scientists: sonified data, musical metaphors for scientific concepts, and experimental sound and images from contemporary research.

David studied at Clare College Cambridge with Giles Swayne, the Guildhall School of Music & Drama with Julian Anderson, and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Birmingham (UK) with Jonty Harrison and Scott Wilson. His fascination with electronic music began in 2008 when he undertook a residency at the Aldeburgh Music Festival, Suffolk, UK, with Jonathan Harvey – an inspirational teacher and pioneer in the field. In 2014, he moved with his family from London to Boston. 

In all projects, David seeks a deep collaboration with musicians, scientists, artists and performers. Some of his recent works include Cellular Dance (2019) a ballet on a theme of cell movement with biologist Alexey Veraksa of UMass Boston, Octave of Light (2020) an album of exoplanet music with Roy Gould of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and Black Hole Symphony (2022) a planetarium symphony with the Museum of Science Boston and Black Hole Initiative.

In tandem with his composing, David is an Assistant Professor at Berklee College of Music and Visiting Professor at WPI.

Sarah Ibbett, violin. In addition to premiering new solo works, Ms. Ibbett plays in the Lexington Symphony and leads the second violins in the Lowell Chamber Orchestra. She has also performed in several ensembles that specialize in historical performance, including the Hanover Band, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Apollo’s Fire, the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra. She has performed many times on NPR and on BBC Radio 3. She also performs with her string quartet Fin de Siecle, which specializes in period performances of works from the early 20th century.

Ms. Ibbeet holds a Bachelor in Music from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, a Masters in Music from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and a Performance Diploma from Boston University.

Sarah is a member of the Suzuki Massachusetts Board of Directors. She has taught at Suzuki institutes and workshops around the country and has given presentations at national Suzuki conferences. She proudly teaches Suzuki violin lessons at the Ibbett Music Studio in Burlington, Massachusetts.

She recently moved from the UK where she played violin with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the London Handel Orchestra, the Hanover Band, the Purcell Orchestra, the London Orchestra da Camera, and Florilegium. She currently plays with a variety of ensembles in the Boston area including Grand Harmonie and the Lexington Symphony.

Mrs. Ibbett grew up in Kansas City where she was a Suzuki student herself, studying with Beth Titterington, Stephanie Sandven, and Eleanor Allen.

Beth Sterling is a Boston-based soprano and educator whose work centers on authentic and sincere performance. Since 2013 she has maintained voice studios privately and throughout the Boston area specializing in children and teens, where her students have progressed to colleges such as Eastman School of Music, and placed in competitions such as NATS New England, the Hal Leonard Vocal Competition, and Music International Grand Prix. She has worked with Multiverse and composer Dr. David Ibbett on Octave of Light since 2020 and looks forward to many more performances. Beth currently resides in northern Massachusetts with her husband and son, born in January 2022.

A dedicated singer from a young age, Beth initially gravitated towards musical theatre and jazz styles before completing her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in classical Voice Performance. Since settling in the Boston area, Beth has enjoyed reconnecting with her initial musical inspirations through crossover styles in addition to classical singing.

Beth has also performed with organizations such as MIT’s Gilbert & Sullivan Society, Emerald City Opera (now Opera Steamboat), Longwood Opera, and OperaWorks. She current maintains a full schedule at her private teaching studio.

As a voice teacher, Beth maintains full studios of elementary, middle, and high-school-aged students as well as adults. She firmly believes in the adage that "everyone can sing," and strives to help students of a wide range of vocal experiences and abilities experience the joy of music and build confidence through the improvement of vocal technique, musicianship, musical literacy, and artistry.

Roland Vanderspek, Ph.D. is the Principal Investigator and Principal Research Scientist for NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.

Roland works in the TESS payload and science operations centers at MIT. In the payload operations center, he and colleagues coordinate the operation of the instrument and satellite on orbit to determine where TESS is pointing and which targets are being looked at. They also handle the data after its downlinked. In the science operations center, processed data is reviewed to look for planets. Before the TESS launch in April 2018, Roland was heavily involved in the testing, tuning, and calibration of the cameras.

Roland was born in Denver, Colorado, but grew up in West Los Angeles. His passion for space was established at age 11 after being gifted a two-inch refracting telescope, which he would use to look at planets, brighter stars, and star clusters. In high school, he took every science course he could take. He remembers thinking, "I'll be an astronomer,” after taking an astronomy course freshman year. Then, after chemistry class during junior year, it was, "I'll study chemistry." Physics was senior year, so now he is a physicist.

Roland first joined a group at MIT that developed instrumentation for astronomy. He started with ground-based astronomy, but then helped build the charge-coupled device (CCD) instrument, a sensor that records images, for the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Next, he helped supply a CCD instrument for the Japanese ASCA X-ray Satellite mission. After, he built a small satellite, HETE-2, for the study of gamma-ray bursts. Over time, Roland moved from doing specific tasks for a project to participating in the planning and execution of an entire mission.