The darkened Charles Hayden Planetarium fell silent on a Thursday in late June as David Ibbett, the bow-tied composer and founder of the Multiverse Concert Series, extended his arm towards four musicians huddled at the center of the room.
“In Mars Symphony, we’ll unfold the story of our kindred world’s past, present and future through the universal language of music,” Ibbett began. “After all, Mars and Earth were once alike, twin worlds of water.”
Moments earlier, more than 200 concert-goers had been reclining in their seats, studying the red, cratered seam that ripped across the planetarium ceiling. Now, other projections danced across the dome — images of cracked clay, gravel, rockets and the mechanical arm of a Mars rover — to Ibbett’s thunderous score.
Mars Symphony is Multiverse’s latest partnership with the Museum of Science, sonifying what scientists know about the Red Planet: The meteor showers that created its cratered surface, the thin atmosphere that dulls sounds — especially high-frequency sounds — and the rock core samples revealing minerals that could only have formed in the presence of water on Mars.
Flutist Jessica Smith’s performance evokes Mars’ delicate winds and, on the electric guitar, Dan VanHassel shreds to the whistling, abrasive sound of sandy dust devils.
The 55-minute production is part of an effort to engage adult audiences at the museum. Creative director James Monroe emphasizes that, between drag performances, stand-up comedy shows and concerts like Mars Symphony, the museum is aiming to introduce Boston to a new form of nightlife.
“There’s something really special about fusing together the science with the music, and the art, and the visual component that is creating that gateway for the general public to want to learn more, and leave here and continue their own research so they can further understand what they just experienced,” Monroe said.
Multiverse’s Black Hole Symphony, which debuted at the Museum of Science in 2022, was the first time Ibbett, Monroe and their team dared to create a large-scale production. It was a sold-out success, and motivated Monroe to green-light another production about Mars, a “place we know a lot about and yet is so far out of reach.”
This time, Multiverse partnered with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab to source audio recordings and images captured by Mars rovers during previous missions. “It was a process of listening very closely,” Ibbett recalled.
Justin Maki is one of the imaging scientists at the NASA lab whose work was adapted by Mars Symphony and projected onto the dome of the planetarium. Maki said he attended the first performance of Mars Symphony in June and was awestruck.
“We get these images processed and put them out into the world for everyone to see but we don’t really know where they end up. And so for me it was inspiring to see people enjoying the data, it essentially puts you on another planet to see these images,” Maki said.
The performance showcases images captured by cameras strapped to Mars rovers and other archival footage from NASA that illustrates the Red Planet’s topography and landscape — all of which Maki said paint a compelling picture of past floods and rushing rivers on Mars, leaving some unanswered questions for scientists and for the composers translating their research into music.
“These channels that we’re seeing that look just like the ones that we see on Earth and these minerals that we’re identifying that match the same minerals that we see on Earth associated with water, it all happened two billion years ago,” said Maki. “So the big question is why, what happened? Why did it all stop? Why did it not continue going like it did on Earth?”
Until an answer emerges, Ibbett and Monroe plan on adapting Mars Symphony’s 360 graphics for flat screen viewing and touring the show around to classrooms and theaters. The summer’s final live performance at the Museum of Science is this Thursday, Aug. 29.
