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Matthew Aucoin, a composer and conductor who graduated in 2008 from Medfield High School, has been named a 2018 MacArthur Fellow.
In announcing the award, the MacArthur Foundation said that the 28-year-old Aucoin’s work as a composer is “expanding the potential of vocal and orchestral music to convey emotional, dramatic, and literary meaning,'' adding: "A talented pianist, writer and conductor in addition to a composer, Aucoin melds sound and language to create musical works that vividly communicate the nuances, ambiguities, and multiple meanings of texts in musical form.’’
Often called the “genius’’ grant, the prestigious MacArthur fellowship carries with it a $625,000, no-strings award. Earlier this year, the American Academy of Arts and Letters selected Aucoin for the $20,000 Benjamin H. Danks Award in Music.
Medfield native Matthew Aucoin conducts. Aucoin was recently named a MacArthur Fellow.
While a student at Medfield High, Aucoin played in the jazz band and was president of the senior class. He was also a member of a rock band called Elephantom. Since graduating from Harvard in 2012, Aucoin has composed the music and written the libretti for two original operas: “Crossing,’’ inspired by Walt Whitman’s work as a nurse during the Civil War, which premiered in 2015 at Boston’s Shubert Theater in a production by the American Repertory Theater; and “Second Nature,’’ a youth opera set in a future severely damaged by climate change, which premiered at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2015.
In 2016, Aucoin became the first artist-in-residence at the Los Angeles Opera, a position that was created for him. He is the cofounder and co-artistic director of the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC). Aucoin is currently at work with renowned playwright Sarah Ruhl on an operatic adaptation of her play, “Eurydice,’’ which is slated to premiere at the Los Angeles Opera before traveling to New York’s Metropolitan Opera.
A resident of New York, he is the son of Don and Carol Aucoin of Medfield and the brother of Christine Aucoin.
