Ipsa Dixit

Called “a twenty-first century masterpiece” by Alex Ross, Ipsa Dixit, a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in music, is a theatrical chamber opera for soprano, flute, violin, and percussion and will feature the Wet Ink ensemble. Exploring the intersection of music, language, and meaning, the piece blends elements of monodrama, Greek theater, and screwball comedy to skewer the treachery of language and the questionable authenticity of artistic expression. Each of the piece’s six movements draws on texts by thinkers such as Aristotle, Plato, Freud, Wittgenstein, Jenny Holtzer, and Lydia Davis, delivering ideas from the linguistic disciplines of poetics, rhetoric, and metaphysics through extended vocal techniques and blistering ensemble virtuosity.