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VOX: American Voices Opera Lab Announces 2027 Finalists
Gillian Rae Perry, Composer | Mo Holmes, Librettist
Desert Bloom
Scott Davenport Richards, Composer | David Cote and
Scott Davenport Richards, Co-Librettists
Robeson / Moscow
Huang Ruo, Composer | James Schamus, Librettist
The Wedding Banquet
Joshua Schmidt, Composer | Dick Scanlan, Librettist
Fallingwater
VOX: American Voices Opera Lab -- newly reimagined as a landmark collaborative project -- announces its four 2027 finalists.
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Desert Bloom — Music by Gillian Rae Perry; libretto by Mo Holmes
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Robeson/Moscow — Music by Scott Davenport Richards; libretto by David Cote and Scott Davenport Richards
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The Wedding Banquet — Music by Huang Ruo; libretto by James Schamus
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Fallingwater — Music by Joshua Schmidt; libretto by Dick Scanlan
On Thursday, April 1, 2027, these works-in-progress will be presented at the VOX Showcase at the Perelman Center for the Performing Arts (PAC NYC). Substantial excerpts from their new creations will be performed by soloists, full orchestra, and chorus, offering artists a critical and unique opportunity to see their work come to life on stage.
“Bringing VOX back to life after all these years is both an honor and a privilege, and to do so alongside this extraordinary cohort of partners is a dream come true," said Beth Morrison, VOX's Director and Creative Producer. "We are thrilled to showcase four remarkable new works conceived for the grand opera stage—and to celebrate opera as the vibrant, living art form it is.”
“We’re delighted to have had such an outpouring of interest in VOX—choosing just four finalists was a challenge, given all the talented work we were offered," said Ted Sperling, VOX's Music Director. "The final slate of works display a great variety of techniques and textures, drawing on influences specific to each piece: the melding of Eastern and Western styles in The Wedding Banquet, the clash of American and Russian cultures in Robeson/Moscow, the lyricism and openness of the Texas landscape in Desert Blooms, and the mathematical and architectural rigor of Frank Loyd Wright’s designs in Fallingwater. It’s with great excitement that we launch our work preparing to share these works with our audience."
The relaunched VOX is now a landmark collaboration among seven leading musical organizations in New York City that care passionately about supporting the future of opera. Each collaborating organization brings a particular resource and/or an area of expertise to the project. American Composers Orchestra provides the orchestra; Beth Morrison Projects is the Producer of VOX and Beth Morrison serves as VOX's Director and Creative Producer; MasterVoices provides the chorus, and Ted Sperling, artistic director of that organization, serves as VOX's Music Director; the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program provides the principal singers with additional singers provided by Manhattan School of Music & Mannes School of Music; and, as the presenter, PAC NYC provides the venue and the labor needed to present the production.
On Monday, November 16 at 7:00 pm, Works & Process at the Guggenheim offers a public conversation and performance exploring the history, relaunch, and future of VOX. The event features a panel with representatives from the institutions participating in the newly formed VOX consortium; a brief (10-minute) piano-and-vocal excerpt of each of the finalists’ works; and a performance by artists from the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program of material selected for the Spring orchestral showcase.
Tickets & Information about this event
VOX 2027 FINALISTS
Gillian Rae Perry, Composer | Mo Holmes,Librettist
Desert Bloom
Grieving her mother and struggling with the expectations of family and faith, Mia wanders beyond her West Texas home, drawn by mysterious voices to the shade of a mulberry tree. There she meets Teo, a young woman whose spirit has spent a century beside the grave of her beloved Ángel, a soldier in the Mexican Revolution. As Mia and Teo fall in love, Mia faces a choice: will she cross the boundary between life and death to join her? Inspired by the ghost towns of Big Bend, Desert Bloom explores queer love, grief, and the persistence of hope in an unforgiving landscape.
Gillian Rae Perry — Composer
Gillian Rae Perry grew up on a bird farm in rural Texas, where she wrote her earliest compositions for the birds. That intimate relationship with the world around her informs music concerned with mental health, vulnerability, and connection. A composer, songwriter and poet with training in film and music, she brings a love of theatrical collaboration to works including Desert Bloom and The Weight of Light.
Mo Holmes — Librettist
Mo Holmes is a Black queer Southern playwright, librettist and dramaturg, born in San Antonio and raised between Texas and Alabama. Her work spans writing for the stage and helping other artists develop new plays as a dramaturg and teaching artist. A Yale Drama Prize winner with an MFA from Columbia, she brings her Southern roots to Desert Bloom’s story of queer love in West Texas.
Scott Davenport Richards, Composer | David Cote and Scott Davenport Richards, Co-Librettists
Robeson/Moscow
Robeson/Moscow follows singer, actor and activist Paul Robeson as his fight against racism and fascism places him between the competing powers of the United States and the Soviet Union. Framed by a personal crisis in a Moscow hotel in 1961, the opera moves through his life: his early performing career, his transformative 1934 visit to Moscow, and his defiance of anti-Communist persecution in America. At its center is an artist willing to risk his fame and freedom for his convictions, even as the societies around him fail to fulfill their promises of equality.
Additional creative credits: Dramaturgy and direction by Robin Guarino.
Scott Davenport Richards — Composer and Co-Librettist
Scott Davenport Richards creates music at the meeting point of opera, jazz and musical theater. His theatrical roots include originating the role of Sylvester in August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom on Broadway. His opera Blind Injustice, written with David Cote, premiered at Cincinnati Opera in 2019. A returning VOX artist, he previously brought A Star Across the Ocean and Charlie Crosses the Nation to the program.
David Cote — Co-Librettist
David Cote is a NYC-based opera librettist, playwright and critic whose work has been produced in London, Europe, and across the US. His operas include Blind Injustice, written with Scott Davenport Richards; Lucidity, with Laura Kaminsky; Three Way with Robert Paterson; and The Scarlet Ibis with Stefan Weisman. His criticism and reporting have appeared in Time Out New York, The New York Times, The Guardian, and American Theatre. Recipient of a 2026 NYSCA grant for a choral-theater work with composer Alejandro Zuleta about anti-Mexican school segregation.
Huang Ruo, Composer | James Schamus, Librettist
The Wedding Banquet
Inspired by Ang Lee’s 1993 film and Andrew Ahn’s 2025 reimagining, The Wedding Banquet follows a chosen family navigating love, cultural identity and competing expectations. Mei and her partner Izzy cannot afford another round of IVF. Their friend Min, a wealthy Taiwanese art student whose visa is expiring, proposes a solution: a marriage of convenience with Mei in exchange for funding Izzy’s treatment. But when Min’s mother arrives unexpectedly and insists on an elaborate wedding, their private arrangement becomes a public comedy of errors—and a test of what it means to accept and forgive the people we call family.
Huang Ruo — Composer
Huang Ruo grew up in Hainan, China, studying piano and composition with his father before training in Shanghai and the United States. His musical language brings Chinese traditions into conversation with experimental sound, rock and jazz through an approach he calls “Dimensionalism.” Across opera, concert music and multimedia work, he treats these influences as parts of a single, fluid artistic vocabulary.
James Schamus — Librettist
James Schamus is a screenwriter, producer, director and film scholar whose long collaboration with Ang Lee includes The Ice Storm and Brokeback Mountain. He co-wrote and produced both Lee’s original The Wedding Banquet and Andrew Ahn’s 2025 reimagining, bringing a direct connection to the story’s evolution. A former head of Focus Features, he also teaches film history and theory at Columbia University.
Joshua Schmidt, Composer | Dick Scanlan, Librettist
Fallingwater
In 1930s Pittsburgh, department-store owner EJ Kaufmann faces antisemitic exclusion despite his commercial success. His wife, Liliane, is a stronger business partner than marital companion, while their son, Junior, searches for a calling at Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture school, Taliesin. When EJ commissions Wright to design a country house, the family’s ambitions and private conflicts converge. Junior’s love for a fellow student and EJ’s affair with a salesgirl expose the unequal stakes of intimacy and power. Fallingwater explores the longing to leave a legacy—and the painful, enduring bonds between parents and children—behind one of America’s most celebrated homes.
Commissioned by the Met/LCT New Works Program. Additional creative credits: Direction by Michael Mayer; dramaturgy by Paul Cremo; associate dramaturgy by Karl Ronneburg.
Joshua Schmidt — Composer
Joshua Schmidt is a composer and sound designer whose work connects musical storytelling with the expressive possibilities of theatrical sound. His award-winning Adding Machine and his adaptation of Shaw’s Candida, A Minister’s Wife, reflect an interest in finding a distinct musical language for each dramatic world. His practice extends from Broadway and regional theater to film, including Joshua Oppenheimer’s The End.
Dick Scanlan — Librettist
Dick Scanlan is a writer, lyricist and director whose career reaches from Broadway musicals to fiction and community arts. He co-wrote the book and wrote the lyrics for Thoroughly Modern Millie, and collaborated with Sherie Rene Scott on Everyday Rapture. His commitment to creative expression also led him to co-found artsINSIDEOUT, which works with mothers and children at Nkosi’s Haven in Johannesburg.
More information about the finalists
More information about VOX
Beth Morrison | Ted Sperling
A Brief History of VOX
In 1999, New York City Opera launched VOX: Showcasing American Opera, the first and only program of its kind dedicated to presenting excerpts of new grand operas by contemporary American composers. What began as an ingenious way to make use of available orchestra weeks quickly evolved into something far more consequential: an essential industry platform where general directors, artistic leaders, tastemakers and audiences could experience a wide-ranging panorama of new operatic works in a single performance.
VOX presentations were mounted on a grand scale, featuring full orchestra, chorus and principal artists. Projects were selected through an open call for scores and adjudicated by a jury of City Opera’s artistic staff, ensuring both rigor and discovery. Over time, the program became one of the field’s most significant incubators for new American opera
In later seasons, VOX was produced by acclaimed director Yuval Sharon, followed by Creative Producer Beth Morrison, who led the program in 2010 and 2011. Shortly thereafter, New York City Opera ceased operations, and when the company was later reconstituted, VOX was no longer part of its programming.
With the blessing of the current NYCO board, however, the program now moves forward under its original name.
Reviving VOX has long been a dream of Beth Morrison’s, but such an undertaking requires a true collective effort. The 2026 reimagining of VOX is made possible through a remarkable and landmark coalition of partners: American Composers Orchestra, Beth Morrison Projects, MasterVoices, the Metropolitan Opera, Mannes Opera at the Mannes School of Music, the Manhattan School of Music Vocal Arts Division, and PAC NYC.
Together, this coalition reaffirms VOX’s original mission: to champion the next generation of American opera and to provide the field with a vital space for discovery, ambition, and artistic risk on a grand scale.
