Matthew Aucoin is an American composer, conductor, and writer, and a 2018 MacArthur Fellow. He is a co-founder of the pathbreaking American Modern Opera Company (AMOC*), was the Los Angeles Opera’s Artist in Residence from 2016 to 2020, and currently serves as an Arnhold Creative Associate at The Juilliard School.
Aucoin’s orchestral and chamber music has been performed, commissioned, and recorded by such leading artists and ensembles as Yo-Yo Ma, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the Brentano Quartet. In the summer of 2023, the MET Orchestra, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, featured Aucoin’s orchestral work “Heath” on its first European tour in several decades.
Aucoin is also well-known for his operas, which include Eurydice, Crossing, and Second Nature. These works have been produced at the Metropolitan Opera, the Los Angeles Opera, 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 a Grammy in 2023.
Aucoin’s other recent conducting engagements include appearances with the Los Angeles Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, San Diego Symphony, Salzburg’s Mozarteum Orchestra, Ojai Music Festival, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Rome Opera Orchestra, and many other ensembles. Aucoin’s book about opera, The Impossible Art: Adventures in Opera, was published in 2021 by Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. He has taught at Harvard University, and his essays regularly appear in leading publications such as The New York Review of Books and The Atlantic.