Matthew Aucoin's Opera, Based On Walt Whitman Diaries, Gets World Premiere At A.R.T.

If you occasionally disappoint yourself with how little you've managed to accomplish in your life, Matthew Aucoin make you feel even worse.

He's a hugely talented musician, composer and conductor, who's just 25 years old.

He grew up in Medfield and completed his first symphonic work at the age of 9. By 11, he could play Mozart's entire "Marriage of Figaro" on the piano — from memory.

He went to Harvard, fills in as conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and became the first ever composer-in-residence at the Peabody Essex Museum.

Now, Aucoin has composed an opera called "Crossing," which is based on the diaries that Walt Whitman kept while he worked in a Civil War field hospital, documenting the unimaginable horrors of war.

"Crossing" is making its world premiere with the American Repertory Theatre Friday night at the Citi Shubert Theatre in Boston.

Matthew Aucoin, musician, composer, conductor. His opera is called "Crossing."

The New York Times: Matthew Aucoin, Opera’s Great 25-Year-Old Hope

The Boston Globe: Musical Wunderkind Aucoin Is A Star In Ascendancy