Hildegard: A Measure of Joy will premiere at the Calvary Presbyterian Church in San Francisco on June 3 before moving to San Jose, Berkeley, and Sacramento. Prominent opera director Francesca Zambello will direct; the libretto is by playwright Donna DiVovelli. The score will include works by Hildegard and her contemporaries, as well as new music by R_gis Camp and Steven Stucky.

A writer, encyclopedist, healer, and the founder of two monasteries, Hildegard composed a great deal of plainchant liturgical music, including antiphons, responsories, sequences, and hymns. Recordings of her work have topped the Billboard charts several times over the last two decades and helped to spark a craze for music of the period.

The new work depicts a meeting of twelve cardinals considering whether Hildegard should be canonized.