The Lights

Matthew Aucoin is an American composer, conductor, and writer. He is a co-founder of the pathbreaking American Modern Opera Company (AMOC*), and was the Los Angeles Opera’s Artist in Residence from 2016 to 2020. As a composer, Aucoin is committed to expanding the possibilities of opera as a genre. His operas, which include Eurydice and Crossing, have been produced at the Metropolitan Opera, the Los Angeles Opera, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Boston Lyric Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the Canadian Opera Company, among others. The Metropolitan Opera’s recording of Eurydice was nominated for Grammy in 2023. Aucoin’s most recent work, Music for New Bodies, is a collaboration with the legendary director Peter Sellars, based on the poetry of Jorie Graham. The piece has been performed in Houston (co-presented by DACAMERA and Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music) and at the Aspen Music Festival and will travel to NY and LA in future seasons. Aucoin’s music has been performed, commissioned, and recorded by such leading artists and ensembles as Yo-Yo Ma, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the pianists Conor Hanick and Kirill Gerstein, and the Brentano Quartet.

Bio to come.

Roomful of Teeth is a Grammy-winning vocal band dedicated to reimagining the expressive potential of the human voice. By engaging collaboratively with artists, thinkers, and community leaders from around the world, the group seeks to uplift and amplify voices old and new while creating and performing meaningful and adventurous music.

Founded in 2009 by Brad Wells, the band was incubated at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) in North Adams, Massachusetts, where members studied with some of the world’s most extraordinary singers and teachers. Through experimentation, exploration, and plenty of failures, the group learned that the boundaries of the human voice are never what they seem, that rules can be bent, even broken, and perhaps they should be.

Through their unique collaborative process, Roomful of Teeth has worked with many of today’s most compelling musical creators to build a significant and continuously growing repertoire. They have collaborated with a wide range of artists and ensembles spanning genres and art forms.

As the world rapidly changes, Roomful of Teeth is cultivating deeper relationships with technology, continuing to explore and expand the artistic reach of the human voice. They are excited about new collaborative projects focused on stories of place, home, and community in diverse environments around the world. They explore, learn, and collaborate with passionate curiosity, contagious enthusiasm, and deep gratitude.