Lang composed this song cycle – a commission from Carnegie Hall and Stanford Lively Arts, premiered at both in late January, 2012 – as a companion piece to the little match girl passion. In that work, death was an implied character; in this follow-up song cycle, death is personified. For the texts sung by the character "Death," Lang turned to the songs of Franz Schubert, from which he made his own translations into English. The part of Death was sung by Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond; the instrumentalists included Bryce Dessner of The National (band) on guitar, Nico Muhly on piano, and Owen Pallett on violin and voice. National Public Radio chose the commercial recording as one of its ten favorite classical albums of 2013. The Whisper Opera Lang wrote the libretto by typing short, personal phrases into a search engine and writing down the results. The opera includes these anonymous confessions, which are whispered by soprano Tony Arnold, while four instrumentalists from the International Contemporary Ensemble never play above a hush. No audience member can hear the entire opera and it cannot be recorded, so it can only be experienced live. Crowd Out Inspired by the powerful singing he heard from the crowd at an Arsenal F.C. football match, Lang came up with the idea of composing a song for over 1,000 people to sing. The first performance was 9 June 2014 at Birmingham's Millennium Point. Singers were split into groups arranged on the steps of the atrium, each one with a leader with a megaphone. The conductor was Simon Halsey. The lyrics came from Lang doing internet searches for the phrase "When I am in a crowd I …" Lang then organised the results into thematic groups. The National Anthems The composer surveyed all of the national anthems of the world, drew ideas and phrases from them, and translated them into English. Musically, it is very similar to The Little Match Girl Passion made up primarily of short, arpeggiated phrases. It is scored for chorus and string quartet. It was premiered on June 7, 2014 at Walt Disney Concert Hall by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, and the recording of the world premiere came out on Cantaloupe Music in the spring of 2016. The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, where Lang was Composer-in-Residence in 2015-16, performed the Canadian premiere of the national anthems, Trinity Choir Wall Street performed the