From: Boston, Massachusetts.
Matthew Aucoin, a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, was named LA Opera's first ever Artist in Residence, a position he held from 2016 to 2020. He has conducted LA Opera productions of Akhnaten (2016) and Rigoletto (2018), as well as concert performances of his own opera Crossing (2018) and performances of Joby Talbot's new score for the film Vampyr (2018). In 2020, he conducted the world premiere of his newest opera, Eurydice, in Los Angeles; the opera will subsequently be presented by the Metropolitan Opera.
He will return to LA Opera in 2021 for a chamber music program (which will include music he has composed) entitled Veils of Desire.
Born in 1990, he is an American composer, conductor, writer and pianist. In the 2014/15 season, he conducted the premieres of two of his operas: Crossing at Boston’s American Repertory Theater (directed by Diane Paulus); and Second Nature, a chamber opera for the young, at Lyric Opera of Chicago. He wrote the libretti for both works. He is currently at work on a new opera for the Metropolitan Opera / Lincoln Center Theater’s New Works program. In the coming season, he will conduct the premiere of his new orchestral work, commissioned by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. His new song cycle, set to texts by James Merrill and co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, New York, and Wigmore Hall, London, will be premiered by tenor Paul Appleby and pianist Ken Noda at recitals in New York, Boston, Chicago, Notre Dame, and Miami. Violinist Jennifer Koh will premiere Aucoin’s new solo violin work at the New York Philharmonic Biennale and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.
He is also at work on a piano concerto commissioned by The Gilmore for pianist Charlie Albright. This season, he makes conducting debuts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; Music Academy of the West (Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, as well as his own chamber opera Second Nature); the Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari, Italy (The Marriage of Figaro); and he returns to the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. In recent seasons, he has appeared as a conductor with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Rome Opera Orchestra, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago (a special event featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma) and Juilliard Opera (Eugene Onegin). (MatthewAucoin.com)
