Saint Cecilia, or the Power of Music is a work in progress one-act chamber opera based on a short story by Heinrich von Kleist.

Workshop at Access Contemporary Music's Concept Lab (2018)

The work has been invited to be part of Access Contemporary Music's new experimental music series, Concept Lab. During the workshop, the composer and librettist duo will work alongside ACM's musicians to explore the earliest stages of the work's musical language.

Collaborators Ryan Homsey (composer) and Joseph Cermatori (librettist) will workshop selected instrumental excerpts from their opera in development, currently titled Saint Cecilia, or the Power of Music, based on the 1810 short story of the same name by Heinrich von Kleist. A legend and a mystery set during the Protestant reformation, the story follows four brothers who descend suddenly into madness under obscure circumstances while attempting to deface a local cathedral. Homsey's musical language draws influence from various forms of 16th-century polyphony and contemporary post-minimalism. Together, he and Cermatori will discuss the project and present sketches of material from several significant moments of it in performance, to be performed by Concept's Lab musical team on Sunday, Februrary 18, 2018.

Composing Residency at Millay Arts (Winter 2022)

During a Wintertide Rustic Retreat composing residency at Millay Arts, Ryan Homsey focused on the overall structure of the work, outlined musical themes of each scene, and analyzed the text. Here is where the first words of the libretto were set as Hosmey composed the opening Prologue for a chorus of martyrs.