In January 2012 Opera Cabal jointly commissioned Princeton University composers Elliot Cole and Caroline Shaw. After an intense collaborative residency at High Concept Labs (Chicago) Shaw and Cole unveiled two new pieces: Shaw’s “Ritornello,” a solo meditation on the idea of repetition and return, and Cole’s “De Rerum,” a hip-hop lecture based on Lucretius’s De Rerum Naturum. “Ritornello” has gone on to be performed by the JACK Quartet, the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), and by Shaw’s vocal ensemble, Roomful of Teeth.