Company Profile
American Modern Opera Company
Company Overview
AMOC* (American Modern Opera Company), founded in 2017 by Matthew Aucoin and Zack Winokur, builds and shares a body of collaborative work. As a group of dancers, singers, musicians, writers, directors, composers, choreographers, and producers united by a core set of values, AMOC* artists pool their resources to create new pathways that connect creators and audiences in surprising and visceral ways.
Our 2023/24 season proposed a dialogue between neglected histories and uncertain futures, from colonial legacies to today’s climate crisis. With two significant world premieres, a US-tour launch, a new work in Paris, and our continued commitment to developing multidisciplinary works, this season showcased groundbreaking American artistry on an international scale. In December 2023, we celebrated Latin American poets and the voices of women with John Adams’s El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered, a special chamber production conceived by Julia Bullock. El Niño toured to Opera Omaha, Stanford University, and Yale University before returning to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine for a second year. Spring 2024 also marked the world premiere of two AMOC* commissions: Music for New Bodies, composed by Matthew Aucoin, is a staged song cycle based on recent poems by Jorie Graham. This work, co-created with director Peter Sellars, explores humankind’s impact on the planet and the presence of immense cycles beyond our control. The work premiered as a co-commission with DaCamara of Houston and Rice University at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. In June, Comet/Poppea—a co-production with Anthony Roth Costanzo, Cath Brittan, The Industry, Curtis Institute of Music, and Yale Schwarzman Center—debuted at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in Los Angeles. Conceived and directed by Yuval Sharon and composed by George Lewis, with a libretto by Douglas Kearney, Comet/Poppea juxtaposes W.E.B. DuBois’ short story The Comet with Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea—framing both a rebuke of opera and a celebration of the form’s radical potential.
AMOC* is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization. For more information, visit www.runningamoc.org.