Matthew Aucoin

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), 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 own operas, including Eurydice and Crossing, have been produced at the Metropolitan Opera, the Los Angeles Opera, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the Canadian Opera Company. The Metropolitan Opera’s recording of Eurydice was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2023.

Aucoin’s orchestral and chamber music has been performed by leading artists and ensembles including Yo-Yo Ma, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the Brentano Quartet. His recent conducting engagements include appearances with the Los Angeles Opera, Chicago Symphony, Santa Fe Opera, Houston Grand Opera, San Diego Symphony, Salzburg’s Mozarteum Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Rome Opera Orchestra, and others. Aucoin’s book The Impossible Art: Adventures in Opera, was published in 2021 by Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. He is a regular contributor to leading publications such as the New York Review of Books and the Atlantic.