Music of the genome 8/4/04. By Giles Newton Jonathan Clark is developing 'Hidden States', an opera with a genomics theme.

Music can be inspired by many things, but seldom, it seems, by science. For a new opera – a rarity in itself – to take genomics and the history of science as its backdrop is almost unknown; yet this is the challenge undertaken by Jonathan Clark, composer and lecturer in music at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Thanks to a Sciart grant, he is developing 'Hidden States', a chamber opera with a genomics theme, to be premiered in Newcastle in the autumn of 2004.

"Genomics is such a big topic now, and will be in the future, so it should be taken on in a theatrical sense," says Dr Clark. "You could take a literal, narrative-based view of a genomics issue, but I think that would be problematic in an opera context. Instead we're using ideas abstracted from the science as the basis for the opera."

A degree and a PhD in mathematics, and a stint as a derivatives trader in the City, may seem an unusual background for a composer of contemporary classical music and electroacoustic music. Yet, says Dr Clark, somehow all these things seemed linked by a common theme of patterns in large amounts of data, and his knowledge of mathematics spurred an interest in bioinformatics – the computer analysis of DNA sequences and genomes.

"I had a lot of discussions about bioinformatics with researchers in Newcastle, and became very interested in Markov models," says Dr Clark. "These mathematical models are based upon probabilities and are used in the modelling of DNA sequences. A genome has bits inserted, deleted or moved around, changing the sequence of the DNA – but one can use Markov to model the linear order. This is such a beautiful idea, and it seemed to me to be something that you could present theatrically."

To demonstrate the idea of a sequence and letters and probabilities, the opera's audience will see a randomly generated sequence of letters, such as ARRIAI, the letters corresponding to an aria, recitative or interlude (see below). With a new sequence of letters being generated at each performance, each show will be unique.

While Dr Clark is composing the music, the text for the arias and recitatives – the main scenes of the opera – is being written by US librettist David Moody and additional text has been commissioned from the poets W N Herbert and Jo Shapcott. Each scene is a collaborator's take on modern genomics and its analogies with the history of science.

"One scene looks at the congruence between 16th-century discourses on magic and alchemy and the language of contemporary bioinformatics," says Dr Clark. "I found a 16th-century text by Paracelsus, a recipe for a human or homunculus [which begins with 'let the semen of a man putrefy by itself in a sealed curcubite with the highest putrefaction of venter equines for forty days']. There is an interesting comparison with a 1990s description of cloning from the US President's Council on Bioethics on cloning [a recipe which includes 'insert the nucleus of a donor adult cell into the enucleated egg, to produce a reconstructed egg'].

"It occurred to me that this comparison is something you could get across and had a theatrical element."

Visual integration will be crucial to the audience's comprehension of what's going on, argues Dr Clark, so projectors and plasma screens will present contrasting images of, for example, alchemical apparatus and modern genetic analysis equipment. "You need strong visuals to set the music and singing in context," he says. Visual artists Uta Kogelsberger and Volker Eichelmann are collaborating with Dr Clark to produce these visuals.

In the summer of 2004, the 'Hidden States' ensemble – two singers and about ten musicians from the Northern Sinfonia – will perform the opera in different locations in Newcastle: the King's Hall at the University; the digital lounge at the Tyneside theatre; and the new BALTIC Centre on the banks of the Tyne. "We'll also produce a DVD of the production, with a film of the production, recordings and text," says Dr Clark. "We'd really like to do repeat performances, so it's important to document everything and make it available to opera companies."

"In the end, the opera will only be successful if it is a contribution to the genre – an opera shouldn't be about science for the sake of it," says Dr Clark. "It has to work as a piece of art, independently of whether it's about science or not."

Dr Jonathan Clark is a Lecturer in Music at the International Centre for Music Studies, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.