April 17: Sono Luminus Releases SEMMELWEIS - A New Song Cycle with Music by Raymond J. Lustig and Words by Matthew Doherty

Sono Luminus Releases SEMMELWEIS on April 17

A New Song Cycle
Music by Raymond J. Lustig and Words by Matthew Doherty 

Featuring Charlotte Mundy, Raymond J. Lustig, and The Rhythm Method 

Inspired by the Life of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis

 "entrancing...surreally beautiful...ecstatic...rapturous" – The New York Times 

"compelling beauty and eerie prescience" – The Washington Post

www.raylustig.com  | www.sonoluminus.com

Review CDs and downloads available upon request.

American composer Raymond J. Lustig releases his next album, a recording of his new song cycle SEMMELWEIS, on the Sono Luminus label on April 17, 2026. With words by Matthew Doherty and music by Lustig, the recording featuring soprano Charlotte Mundy, Raymond J. Lustig, and The Rhythm Method, plus violinist Leah Asher, cellist Meaghan Burke, bass clarinetist Chrystof Knoche, and double bassist Ranjit Prasad.

The source material for Lustig’s compelling song cycle is the story of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, the 19th-century obstetrician who championed the practice of handwashing which is the foundation of today’s antiseptic procedures. Amidst a devastating epidemic in the 1840s, Dr. Semmelweis discovered that the deadly disease was being spread to healthy mothers by the unclean hands of their own doctors. Tragically, the medical community rebelled against his discovery. Semmelweis’s insight had a lot to do with watching the washing rituals of midwives. Their practices reflected ancient learned knowledge, and noticing their superior outcomes alerted Semmelweis that his doctors were skipping something of critical importance, with tragic results. An impatient and irascible man, speaking twenty years ahead of the germ theory of disease, and with news that would bring unbearable guilt to countless doctors, he found few ears open to considering his shocking hypothesis. They scoffed at his findings, rejected his theory, stripped him of his credentials, and he was subsequently driven into an asylum where he died alone. It was not until decades later that his discovery was validated and accepted.

Not surprisingly, Dr. Semmelweis had a resurgence of interest during the pandemic. He was even featured as the “Google Doodle” on March 20, 2020, described as being, “widely remembered as ‘the father of infection control,’ credited with revolutionizing not just obstetrics, but the medical field itself, informing generations beyond his own that handwashing is one of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of diseases.”

For many years, composer Raymond Lustig has been intrigued and inspired by Dr. Semmelweis. He first conceived of a stage work around the doctor’s story in 2007. At the time, he was a graduate student in music, but he had spent several years doing biomedical research. After many iterations, the fully staged production of SEMMELWEIS came to fruition in 2018, when Lustig joined forces with writer Matthew Doherty and Hungarian director Martin Boross, and the world premiere performances were presented by Budapest Operetta Theatre and Bartók Plusz Opera Festival.

The song cycle recorded here derives from that production. “Our goal was to make a true studio album, rather than a capture of the stage work,” Lustig says. “I knew I wanted to work with Charlotte Mundy, whose voice has always been the ideal for me for this work. We then decided that, rather than try to build a choir of matching female voices, we would instead use only Charlotte’s voice, multiplied over itself, spread out in the stereo field, one unified voice totally surrounding and overwhelming. These female voices often represent a chorus of ghosts of the mothers he could not save (or ‘mother ghosts,’ as we call them), who haunt Dr. Semmelweis. Engineer and co-producer Maximilien Hein and I, as well as engineer Drew Schlingman, recorded with the musicians in my studio at Respirano on Hudson and at The Hit Factory in New York. The theatrical experience and private listening are very different. We knew we needed to rebuild the music from the ground up, reconsidering every detail, refining and elaborating, revising and revising, to get to the true emotional heart of the story as an auditory experience.”

The entire action of SEMMELWEIS may be seen as a reflection – a fever dream or death dream – of Ignaz Semmelweis’ inner psyche at his life’s end. Dr. Semmelweis re-experiences events from throughout his life, perhaps out of sequence, distorted, or unreliable, as if through a lens of a mind in turmoil.

“We envisioned it as a story made of glass that had fallen to the floor, smashed, and the shards lay there reflecting only segments of the meaning, but somehow, gazing upon all of them, letting them come back together in the mind, the meaning might be perceived,” explains Lustig. “Maybe, or maybe just partially, or maybe not at all.”

About Raymond J. Lustig: ASCAP-award-winning composer and multi-instrumentalist Raymond Lustig’s music stretches boundaries to weave together his classical upbringing, his love of folk choral traditions, and indie rock. Having also taken a significant detour into the world of biomedical research, he continues to draw inspiration from nature and the sciences.

His critically acclaimed 2013 work Latency Canons—composed for an orchestra made up of musicians playing literally from around the globe via the internet—brought international attention to his music. Premiering seven years before the Covid pandemic at Carnegie Hall and simultaneously at sites worldwide, it pioneered remote music making as something accessible to traditional players and audiences.

Lustig has collaborated with cellist Joshua Roman, tenor Nicholas Phan, American Composers Orchestra, Grand Rapids Symphony, Metropolis Ensemble, Budapest Operetta Theater, the Bartok Plusz Opera Festival, the American Opera Project, pianist Blair McMillen, and classical guitar ensemble Duo Noire. He is currently working closely with Italian alternative rock artist Luigi Porto, with whom he co-leads the alternative rock band Manicburg, whose debut album premiered in 2024.

Lustig’s work has been honored with the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP’s Rudolf Nassim Prize for his orchestral work UNSTUCK, the Aaron Copland Award from Copland House, the Juilliard Orchestra competition, the New Juilliard Ensemble competition.

ALBUM TRACK LISTING & CREDITS:

SEMMELWEIS
Music by Raymond Lustig
Words by Matthew Doherty
Raymond Lustig | Charlotte Mundy | The Rhythm Method
Sono Luminus
Release Date: April 17, 2026 

1. What is the Day
2. Market Squares
3. Give Birth on the Earthworks
4. Best Idea
5. My Doctor's Hands
6. Never a Choice
7. Out in the Yard
8. Archaeology
9. Our Skin So Fair
10. As if Your Body Were a Cathedral
11. You Cannot Stay
12. My Dark Disgrace
13. Etiology
14. Eureka
15. I am the Experiment
16. Madness
17. Once a Candle
18. The Only One
19. Lullaby
20. Finale

Total Time: 65:28 

Music by Raymond J. Lustig
Words by Matthew Doherty
Additional Latin words: Martin Boross, Diána Eszter Mátrai, Julia Jakubowska 

Charlotte Mundy - voice of Woman and the Mother Ghosts
Raymond J. Lustig - voice of Semmelweis, piano, organ, accordion, music boxes
The Rhythm Method - string quartet
Leah Asher - violin
Meaghan Burke - cello
Ranjit Prasad - double bass
Chrystof Knoche - bass clarinet 

Produced by Raymond J. Lustig and Maximilien Hein
Executive Produced by Raymond J. Lustig
Additional Production by Drew Schlingman (“Best Idea”, “Eureka”)
Recorded by Maximilien Hein and Drew Schlingman
Mixed by Maximilien Hein
Mastered by Daniel Shores 

Recorded at The Hit Factory, NYC and Respirano on Hudson, NYC from 2023 to 2025
Assistant Engineer at The Hit Factory: Brendan O’Neill 

Album Art by Alex Sopp
Graphic Design by Josh Frey