A Cacophony Of Voices, Human And Planetary: Songs Of World As One

PERSPECTIVE — Matthew Aucoin is hearing a lot of voices. In the shadow of the gathering climate crisis, the visionary American composer’s ambitious new work — a “synesthetic song cycle,” in his words — conjures a cacophony of human, post-human, and natural voices, both individual and collective, sometimes indistinguishable, and all struggling to be heard.

Directed by Peter Sellars in a first-time collaboration and inspired by the poetry of Jorie Graham, Music for New Bodies probes urgent themes of biology, illness, and technology using a maximalist aesthetic to explore the human and planetary condition. The ensemble DACAMERA and the Shepherd School of Music will present a concert performance of the work April 20 at Rice University in Houston. (It also will be heard in another concert production at the Aspen Music Festival this summer, and will be presented in New York by the American Modern Opera Company, a co-commissioner of the work, in 2025.)