OPERA America Awards $100,000 In Discovery Grants To Eight Women Composers

OPERA America has revealed the eight recipients of the 2025 Discovery Grants from its Opera Grants for Women Composers program. Grants totaling $100,000 will support the development of new opera and music-theater works by these exceptional women composers.

The 2025 recipients are:

• Jamey Guzman, composer, for Open Heart Surgery (Caroline Cao, librettist)
• Wang Lu, composer, for The Red Thread (Deborah Brevoort, librettist)
• AngĂ©lica NegrĂłn, composer and librettist, for Chimera (working title)
• Molly Pease, composer, for HYSTERIA (Divya Maus, librettist)
• Beth Ratay, composer, for The Morpheus Quartet (John Glore, librettist)
• Bahar Royaee, composer and music director, for Nava Avaz (Sholeh WolpĂ©, librettist)
• Joelle Wallach, composer, for Esperanza (Alejandra Martinez, librettist)
• Emily Wells, composer and librettist, for Cadillac Ranch

In addition to cash awards, OPERA America provides travel support and free registration for Discovery Grant recipients to attend its Opera Conference and New Works Forum. These events offer opportunities for grantees to develop relationships with potential creative partners and producers. Grant recipients also receive mentorship and access to professional development programs, including workshops on the business aspects of new work development.

Applications to the Discovery Grants program were reviewed by an independent panel that included Layale Chaker, composer, 2022 Discovery Grant recipient, and beneficiary of a 2022 Opera Grant for Women Composers; Jeremy Johnson, dramaturg; Crystal Manich, stage director and librettist; Johanny Navarro, composer and 2020 Discovery Grant recipient; Sahar Nouri, conductor and pianist; and Greg Pierce, librettist.

Opera Grants for Women Composers, generously supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation since 2014, is among OPERA America's grants and awards supporting individual artists. More information about OPERA America's grant and award programs is available at operaamerica.org/Grants.

ABOUT THE COMPOSERS & WORKS (Publicity Photos)

Jamey Guzman, composer

Open Heart Surgery

Caroline Cao, librettist

Jamey Guzman is an award-winning composer for the stage, screen, and concert hall. A passionate storyteller dedicated to telling underrepresented stories with experimental and innovative techniques, she has received major commissions from the Center for the Performing Arts, Really Spicy Opera, Opera Arlington, Strange Trace Opera, New Voices Opera, ENAensemble, Paradox Opera, and SONIT. A performer's composer, Guzman has seen her music championed by musicians across the country. Her work has been performed at Nightingale Opera Theatre's Young Artist Program, Kansas City Opera's Come as You Are, and Sparks and Wiry Cries' Chicago and Bloomington songSLAMs; on graduate recitals from Indiana to Virginia; and on stages from Los Angeles to Madagascar to Paris to El Salvador. Also a devoted composition teacher, Guzman serves as faculty at the Jacobs Composition Academy, holds an associate instructor position in Indiana University's Music Scoring for Visual Media department, and is a teaching artist for Opera on Tap's Playground Opera.

Open Heart Surgery

Open Heart Surgery is a medical-drama chamber opera about love of all forms: love for one's career, love for one's family and ancestors, and love for one's romantic interest. This opera captures Esme, a third-generation surgeon who secretly dreams of leaving the medical field and raising a family; Maria, her rival, who is at the cusp of dropping out of her program to deal with an unplanned pregnancy; and Prof. Jimenez, Esme's mother and a professor at medical school, whose third-generation surgeon daughter is her pride and joy, as clumsy and anxious as Esme may be. Together, they navigate Esme's decision to pursue her own dream for her life instead of her mother's dream, Maria's path toward self-acceptance and her decisions about her child, and Prof. Jimenez's own path fighting her generational trauma and working to not push Esme the way her own mother pushed her.

Wang Lu, composer

The Red Thread

Deborah Brevoort, librettist

Composer Wang Lu creates music that reflects influences from urban environmental sounds, linguistic intonation and contours, traditional Chinese music, and freely improvised practices, all through the prism of contemporary instrumental techniques and new sonic possibilities. Her works have been performed internationally by orchestras and ensembles such as the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Opera Theater, and Ensemble Intercontemporain, among others. She has received the Berlin Prize in Music Composition from the American Academy in Berlin, the Wladimir and Rhoda Lakond Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and commissions from the Koussevitzky Foundation in the Library of Congress and the Fromm Foundation at Harvard. Wang Lu was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2014. Her portrait albums, Urban Inventory (2018) and An Atlas of Time (2020), were released to critical acclaim.

The Red Thread

An adopted Chinese girl travels from the U.S. with her White American mom to a city in rural China, hoping to find her birth mother who abandoned her 18 years ago in a basket of melons in the local market with only a red thread around her ankle. The girl goes to the melon stall and meets an orphanage worker who goes through the market every night to collect abandoned babies. Suddenly, a woman arrives looking for her lost child. The orphanage worker tells the girl that the woman abandoned her daughter years ago and has since gone mad; she now wanders the market at night whenever there's a full moon. The girl approaches the madwoman. Could she be her mother? But the woman is too lost in grief to connect. Instead, she sings to the moon and leaves, continuing her search for her lost child. The orphanage worker consoles the girl by telling her that all lost mothers seek their children in the moon; if she wants to find her mother, she should sing to the moon too; that way, her mother — wherever she is — will hear her. The opera ends with the young girl singing to her lost mother in the moon.

Cultural note: Mothers who abandon their daughters often leave them with a bracelet made of red thread, tied around the ankle, which refers to the “red thread of fate” from Chinese mythology. It's based in the belief that there is an invisible cord that binds people who are destined to meet, if not in this life, then in the next. This thread will never break.

Angélica Negrón, composer and librettist

Chimera (working title)

A Puerto Rican-born composer and multi-instrumentalist, Angélica Negrón writes music for accordions, robotic instruments, toys, and electronics as well as for chamber ensembles, orchestras, choirs, and film. Her music has been commissioned by Bang on a Can All-Stars, Kronos Quartet, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Opera Philadelphia, Louisville Orchestra, and New York Botanical Garden, among others. Upcoming premieres include works for Seattle Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Louisville Orchestra, and New York Philharmonic's Project 19. Negrón is a current member of the HERE Artist Residency Program, developing Chimera (working title) in a future HERE season, and was recently an artist-in-residence at WNYC's The Greene Space, working on El Living Room, a variety show and playful multimedia exploration of sound, story, personal history, and belonging. Negrón holds a B.A. in music composition from the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico and an M.M. in music composition from New York University.

Chimera (working title)

Chimera is a deeply personal chamber opera featuring drag queen performers that explores the complexity and boundlessness of identity. It will feature a chamber orchestra, vocalists, electronics, and film with drag queens performing the lead role of the title character, Chimera.

With performers personifying different facets of one individual, Chimera is an homage to the women who shaped the work's composer, Angélica Negrón. Chimera draws on Negrón's experiences as a young girl hanging out with her mom's friends and watching them put on shows; these friends were mostly men who dressed as women. This important part of Negrón's childhood marked her deeply, and this opera is born out of her love and respect for the drag community.

Chimera is intended to be non-narrative in form, favoring an abstract and surreal montage style that blurs the line between deeply personal memories and newly imagined ones. Though non-conventional in its form, this chamber opera is preoccupied with evoking a very direct connection toward emotions through a vivid collage of memories from a collective past. It is conceived as a multilayered project: Each piece has a different voice and each, in turn, will be performed by different drag artists. Likewise, each movement will be a short film directed by different directors. The libretto as well as the narrative arc will continue to evolve and unfold organically from NegrĂłn's experiences in these new encounters, underscoring the connections between our shared experiences.

Molly Pease, composer

HYSTERIA

Divya Maus, librettist

Molly Pease is an LA-based vocal artist and composer whose singing has been described as “sonically mesmerizing” (LA Weekly) and whose genre-defying compositions have been described as “achingly gorgeous” (New Classic LA). Her recent works include erde dreams for solo voice, electronics, and trio; Waterways and Dwellings, a collaboration with poet Molly Bendall written for chamber vocal and instrumental ensemble; and her album Inner Astronomy, which incorporates her father's oceanic, bird-inspired poetry that focuses on struggles with depression and addiction. Her song “Transform” was recorded by vocalist Alicia Olatuja and was featured on the album Intuition: From the Minds of Women. Pease's music has also been performed at Blue Note Tokyo, the Jazz Bakery, and Monk Space, among others. She is a member and assistant director of the experimental vocal sextet HEX. She has performed with Björk, Tune-Yards, Sigur Rós, and Kronos Quartet.

HYSTERIA

In 1909, the Neuroticist — a world-renowned psychoanalyst — welcomes an audience of young progressive minds to his Symposium on Hysteria. He presents four female patients: Cherie, an unwed mother eager for marriage to a noncommittal partner; Kate, a young wife suffering from hallucinations; Ameeta, a mother anxious to find a match for her adult son; and Mona, an architect striving to create a life-changing work while appeasing her commissioners. Each is trapped in a scene designed to push her past her breaking point into what the Neuroticist calls “hysteria,” a syndrome he aims to cure. However, his demonstrations are haunted by the Woman in the Wallpaper, a specter determined to stoke the women's fury. The Neuroticist and the Woman in the Wallpaper battle in increasingly surrealist scenarios, leading to a final confrontation — a contest of the gods, and the birthplace of our fury.

HYSTERIA tackles the evolution of gender and mental health narratives by drawing from historical medical journals, early feminist fiction, modern reality television, and the personal experiences of the writers. Orchestrated for electric guitar, strings, keyboard, and percussion, and drawing from the genres of rock and experimental music, HYSTERIA's score straddles the fragile boundary between repressed emotion and savage fury, between being well-behaved and being our original unbridled selves, inviting the audience to laugh through their compassion and outrage.

Beth Ratay, composer

The Morpheus Quartet

John Glore, librettist

Beth Ratay is a versatile composer who is able to craft music using a wide variety of styles and techniques. From music possessed of a quiet, understated grace, to music that plays joyfully with mathematical concepts, to laugh-out-loud operatic fun, her music is engaging, charming, and beautiful. Dr. Ratay received her Doctor of Musical Arts in world music composition from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and has had her works performed across the U.S. by ensembles such as Earplay, West Edge Opera, Boston Opera Collaborative, Coalescence Percussion Duo, Alter Ego Chamber Opera, the New Mexico Symphonic Chorus, and Hartford Opera Theater. Ratay also enjoys teaching, and she currently teaches theory and composition at the University of New Mexico as well as with the Opera Storytellers and Active Learning Through Opera programs at the Santa Fe Opera. Ratay currently lives with her amazing family, including one husband, two sons, and two cats, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The Morpheus Quartet

Tonight, the musicians of the Morpheus Quartet are perfectly in sync — in their dreams! — as the verbal counterpoint of their subconscious desires yields a surprising kind of bed-chamber music.

This work is based on an existing one-scene short play by John Glore. The four members of the Morpheus Quartet are each having their own dream, based on their own lives and experiences. The 1st Violin dreams of a warm bubble bath and a glass of wine accompanied by the most beautiful and ethereal music she has ever heard, but beneath this facade lies a deep-seated fear of being unable to reach her full musical potential. The 2nd Violin dreams that his cat Kreisler is lost, and in searching for him, encounters his dead brother. The character's realization that he is trans is emotionally tied to this loss, creating a complex web of emotions. The Viola is dreaming of the cellist, who is also her ex. When awake, they have an amiable working relationship, but she still has unresolved feelings for him. The Cello, the least self-aware of the group, is dreaming of driving to his gig, running late, and having no pants, when he encounters another fast car with an intriguing driver whom he can't help but chase. In the end, all of the members of the quartet come together to play their music onstage, each bringing all of their baggage with them into the shared creation of music, reminding us that music is truly a shared and universal language.

Bahar Royaee, composer and music director Nava Avaz

Sholeh Wolpé, librettist

(Composed in collaboration with five members of the Iranian Female Composers Association: Mercedeh Gholami, Niloufar Nourbakhsh, Homa Samiei, Aida Shirazi, and Niloufar Shiri)

The acoustic and electro-acoustic music of Iranian composer/sound designer Bahar Royaee has been acclaimed as “poetic” (Classical Voice North America) and “haunting” (Boston Arts Review). Recipient of the prestigious Fromm Foundation Commission Awards 2024, Royaee has had her work performed by luminaries such as Claire Chase, International Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble der gelbe Klang, JACK Quartet, Fabrik Quartet, SPLICE Ensemble, and Lamnth. Significant chamber music performances include Biennale Venice 2024 with Hannah Levinson, Festspiele festival in Germany with Opus21 ensemble (2024), Composers Conference Gala 2024 with Talea Ensemble, Ultraschall Berlin with Muriel Razavi (2023), Berlin Prize for Young Artists with Adam Woodward (2023), ICE Festival Germany with Ensemble Tempus Konnex (2022), Tehran International Electroacoustic Music Festival (2022), and Time: Spans Festival (2020) with International Contemporary Ensemble and Suzanne Farrin.

Nava Avaz

Nava Avaz is a collective opera written by librettist Sholeh Wolpé (Los Angeles, CA) and six composers of the Iranian Female Composers Association: Mercedeh Gholami (Aarhus, Denmark), Niloufar Nourbakhsh (Boston, MA), Bahar Royaee (New York, NY), Homa Samiei (Toronto, Canada), Aida Shirazi (Austin, TX), and Niloufar Shiri (Irvine, CA). The opera tells the story of Nava Avaz, a young woman who is imprisoned and tortured by the Islamic regime in Iran for, seemingly, not wearing a hijab. The real reason for her arrest, though, is her father, a scientist who discovered the key to the world of dreams — a world the regime seeks to control. In her prison cell, Nava is visited by three prominent Iranian female poets and sources of social change: Rabia'a Balkhi (10th century), Tahirih Qurrat al-ʿAyn (late 19th century), and Forugh Farrokhzad (mid-20th century.) By revealing the truth about her life, each of these women empowers and helps Nava navigate her path and liberate herself.

The three poets represent the struggle of Iranian women for equal participation in society. Despite being ignored, vilified, and even murdered for their cause, Rabia'a, Tahirih, and Forugh's legacy of resistance, perseverance, and authenticity continues to live in millions of Iranian women. Nava is a symbol of contemporary Iranian women who have inherited the bravery, desire for justice, and liberation from previous generations and who fight with their lives to fulfill the collective dream of freedom.

Joelle Wallach, composer

Esperanza

Alejandra Martinez, librettist

Joelle Wallach writes music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, solo voices, and chorus. Infused with the vivid imagery of nature and myth, her music's intimate expressivity and persuasive emotional landscapes speak to the soul. Although she makes her home in the Bronx, where she was born, Wallach's childhood in Morocco colors her work and worldview. Since 1980 when her choral work, On the Beach at Night Alone, won first prize in the Inter-American Music Awards, Wallach's music has consistently won prestigious international prizes, commissions, and awards. Her String Quartet (1995) was the American Composers Alliance nominee for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Music. Wallach has been a guest and resident composer at orchestras and festivals around the world, including the Billings (Montana), Hudson Valley, and San Jose Symphonies; the National Orchestral Association; and the Piccolo Spoleto and Charles Ives Festivals. An original and engaging educator, Wallach has designed new pedagogical approaches for the Lincoln Center Institute and created and expanded engagement programs at the Billings, Hudson Valley, and San Jose Symphonies. Wallach earned her bachelor's and master's degrees at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University, respectively, and in 1984, Manhattan School of Music granted her its first doctorate in composition.

Esperanza

Esperanza is a dramatic musical meditation on motherhood, migration, and the search for refuge, based on poems by Gabriela Mistral, the first Latin American winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. As Esperanza flees toward refuge, a metaphorical star leads her and her children toward safety. She sings her hope for a new day for herself, her toddler, and the ailing infant swaddled against her chest. A “coyote” demands her meager funds to take the family across a dangerous, distant border. They enter his truck as night falls as she sings her children a tender lullaby. An old man hobbles in. Well-intentioned, he gives the toddler a tiny toy horse. The toddler and choral children celebrate the toy with song and a playful dance. The dance becomes increasingly frenetic, building to a climax as ominous black-clad dancers appear among them. An “officer” appears, grills Esperanza, and takes her few coins. He hassles her, shoots the old man, and flings the baby out of Esperanza's arms, leaving the family alone, grieving in the wilderness. Esperanza retrieves her baby, tenderly covers the old man's body with her shawl, and resumes the family's trek. But the baby is dying. Esperanza sings her goodbye to the little one as Death arrives to claim the child. Death and Esperanza sing a duet of grief and determination. Though Esperanza's pace has become slower, burdened with grief, the Narrator reminds us of her goal. Even when she falls, dropping her star, her resolve returns — along with her hope.  

Emily Wells, composer and librettist

Cadillac Ranch

Forging a bridge between pop and chamber music, polymathic composer, producer, and video artist Emily Wells builds songs from deliberate strata of vocals, synths, drums, piano, and string and wind instruments. Wells has toured extensively throughout the world, including performances at the Guggenheim, Lincoln Center, Sundance Film Festival, and the National Gallery of Art. She is a 2022 NYU/CBA/National Sawdust Toulmin Fellow and a 2020 NYFA grant recipient. In 2024, she scored the play The Fires by Raja Feather Kelly as well as the short film Front of the Room for New York City Ballet. Wells' evocative music (described as “thrilling” and “a perfect snow globe” by Pitchfork) and performances (called “quietly transfixing” by The New York Times) impel listeners to be attuned. Her latest album, Regards to the End, explores the AIDS crisis and its lessons for climate action. A work of radical empathy, it foregrounds the power of art, critique, and care to connect and perhaps redeem us.

Cadillac Ranch

Artist Statement:

It's 1981. My father is 30 years old. He's been out of the closet for a year or two, maybe more.

This is an alternative history. This is the imagined story of a life my father might have lived had he not become a closeted music minister in Texas and Indiana in the 1980s and 1990s, eventually suffering a nervous breakdown after years of locker room and gay bar trysts; a nervous breakdown that coincided with me, his daughter's own coming out at 17. He's been following me out of the closet ever since, with one foot still firmly fixed inside. The story will move between two realities, both beginning in 1981, the year of my birth and the first diagnosed case of GRID or AIDS. Story one is the imagined life of “mirror father” who will encounter both real and conjured events, people, and places culled from research, interviews, art, and writing of the period. Story two will be told through a recurring dream character, me, his imagined daughter who returns to him as he moves through his life. This “phantom daughter” will recount my real-life memories and bring us into the present. The two will discover overlays: their queerness, their art, and each one's desire to have a child but choosing not to due to their fears of the end of the world — his AIDS, hers climate catastrophe. This is the tragedy of the opera — the dual deaths, the missed love, the children that never were — and what gives it the audacity to call itself an Opera with a capital O, though the form will be experimental.

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