Following a season of sold-out events at last year’s Summer for the City, the creator-driven American Modern Opera Company returns to Lincoln Center for an Up Close series of one-night-only contemporary compositions at the David Rubenstein Atrium. The opening program presents the premieres of The Inner Core, from AMOC* co-founder and MacArthur Fellow Matthew Aucoin, and Camino Songs, by composer-instrumentalist-poet Doug Balliett. Aucoin's Inner Core song cycle features the composer on piano, accompanied by acclaimed baritone vocalist William Socolof (Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic).

Together, the duo limn the arc of an imagined romantic relationship from adolescence through the couple’s parting in early adulthood. Balliett's Camino Songs was conceived while on pilgrimage to the Galician municipality of Santiago de Compostela. Supported with projections of the composer's original photography, Camino Songs is a journey of self-reflection, local Spanish lore, and deep devotion.