Composers going on and on in all different directions

"It's a melting pot. We're a bit like mad scientists putting all of this in a room with the audience and creating a new experience," said Savelson. "You get to hear it all in one shot. And it creates a conversation. That's the important thing."

One wild card, says Stuccio, is when it will end and who all will end up onstage together. "If the party is rolling, and the music is great, I'll authorize overtime" pay, he said.

Another such card is the collaborative efforts of the three founding composers. Jointly written pieces are rare in music history. Yet Wolfe, Gordon, and Lang have all contributed their own movements to the hour-long oratorio Shelter - each meditating on what that word means, in conjunction with a visual component by videographer Bill Morrison.

Wolfe, for one, riffed on porches - "when people would sit on them and drink lemonade, and how little by little the porch was enclosed with screens and then walls," she said. Lang loves to set lists to music, and requested a home-related one from librettist Deborah Artman.

Luckily, the three are used to consulting one another on their music, which is particularly easy for Gordon and Wolfe since they're married. "I'll say, 'Listen to this!' And he'll shake his head. And I'll get mad and say, 'I've been working on this all day!' " says Wolfe. "Maybe I'll realize he's right. Then sometimes I convince [him] that I know what I'm doing . . . "