Shelter is the third in a trilogy of collaborative works that began with 1999's _The Carbon Copy Building_, followed by 2001's _Lost Objects_.

Shelter taps into the various meanings and connotations of the word, from basic protection from the elements to the building of an American home. Commissioned in 2005 by the Cologne-based musikFabrik ensemble and BAM's Next Wave Festival, the project reunited Gordon, Lang and Wolfe with Deborah Artman, who wrote the libretto for Lost Objects.

Artman notes that Shelter evokes the power and threat of nature, the soaring frontier promise contained in the framing of a new house, the pure aesthetic beauty of blueprints, the sweet architecture of sound and the uneasy vulnerability that underlies even the safety of our sleep.

Shelter is an oratorio, but with smaller forces: three sopranos and a large, mixed ensemble.