During the 2023 season, Sosa will premiere the puppet opera Monkey, commissioned by White Snake Projects, and the comic opera The Beehive, commissioned by the University of Northern Iowa. In 2022 Jorge’s opera I Am A Dreamer Who No Longer Dreams received its second production by Resonance Works in Pittsburgh, with a newly expanded orchestration. Sosa was selected as a finalist for The Atlanta Opera 96 Hour Opera Project in 2022 and 2023, and also premiered the opera scene “Samiir’s Feast,” commissioned by White Snake Projects. In 2021, Sosa was commissioned to write a sextet “Rocola” for Tian Hui Ng and the Victory Players that premiered June 2022. Sosa was commissioned to develop The Rising Tide for Boston Children’s Chorus about climate change. Sosa is currently collaborating with American Lyric Theater to develop a new opera titled Splintered that is co-composed with Justine Chen, with libretto by Lila Palmer. Splintered was awarded a 2022 Opera America Repertoire Development Grant. Sosa is an Associate Professor at Molloy University. His music is available on all the major music download sites and through the website www.jorgesosa.com.

Responding to the pandemic restrictions, Martinez was proud to partner with Matthew Recio on an outdoor cantata, The Hollow, about mental illness and recovery. During Summer 2022, her monodrama, The Queen, My Lord, Is Dead, was produced at UCLA with music by Tomàs Peire Serrate. Currently, she is working on a new Spanish-language opera, Escobar, with composer Matteo Neri. Martinez met Jorge Sosa at Atlanta Opera’s 96-Hour Opera Project, where they produced an original scene inspired by the people of Buford Highway, “Buford Highway Dreams.” She continues to be a prolific collaborator and performer of contemporary classical works.

Rodolfo in La bohème with Opera Steamboat, Astolfo in Furiosus with Mercury Opera, Shakur in Thumbprint with Portland Opera, Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet with Boston Lyric Opera, Spearmint Lodge in the world-premiere of The Artwork of the Future with Fresh-Squeezed Opera, Alfredo in La Traviata with MassOpera, Gastone in La Traviata with Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras, tenor soloist in St John Passion and Christmas Oratorio with Emmanuel Music, Tito in La Clemenza di Tito with Opera Steamboat, and Bilal in This Is Not That Dawn with Catalyst New Music. Najmi enjoys a long standing relationship with Boston Lyric Opera where he began his professional career as an Emerging Artist (2013-2015). He has performed over 15 productions at the company, and he served as their first ever Emerging Composer in the 2020-21 season. His other operatic engagements have included Opera Colorado, Chautauqua Opera, Annapolis Opera, Opera Saratoga, Opera Maine, Opera Fayetteville, Opera NEO, Opera North, Odyssey Opera, American Lyric Theater, and more.

Najmi made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2018 as the tenor soloist in Mark Hayes’ Gloria. He has since returned as the soloist in Dan Forrest’s Requiem for the Living, and as a soloist in Talents of the World Inc.’s Caruso Tribute Concert. He has performed several times as a soloist with the touring concert Video Games Live, including an appearance with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra at the Red Rocks Amphitheater. Najmi has been the recipient of the Harold Norblom Award from Opera Colorado, the Stephen Shrestinian Award from Boston Lyric Opera, second prize from the Wilkinson Young Singers Fund, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Fellowship from Emmanuel Music, second place nationally in the Handel Aria Competition, and he has been a regional finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions.

Najmi began his composition career with the production of his first opera, En la ardiente oscuridad, in 2019. After a run of sold-out performances, he was invited to serve as the first ever Emerging Composer in residence with Boston Lyric Opera, where he worked with Boston Youth Poet Laureate Alondra Bobadilla in the creation of the song cycle my name is Alondra.

The piece received its live premiere on BLO’s Street Stage in 2021. In 2022, his motet The Last Invocation was premiered by Emmanuel Music. His recently commissioned song cycle More Than Our Own Caves just received its premiere with Juventas New Music Ensemble. He is currently working on Jo dooba so paar  – a short opera exploring the intersection of Queer and Muslim identity – which will be premiered as part of White Snake Projects’ Let’s Celebrate initiative. His opera-in-progress The Fermi Paradox is currently a semifinalist with Opera Theatre of St. Louis’ New Works Collective.

In 2022, Najmi and his husband Brendon Shapiro co-founded Catalyst New Music – an organization dedicated to fostering, developing, and producing new works. Catalyst’s first project – presented with the support of The Boston Foundation’s Live Arts Boston grant – was a concert performance of Najmi’s new opera This Is Not That Dawn , a drama set during and after the Partition of India.

She has been a 2016 NYSCA/NYFA fellow, a MacDowell fellow, a Soho Rep W/D Lab writer and a New York Theatre Workshop Emerging Artist of Color. Her short plays have been commissioned by 52nd Street Project, Two Headed Rep and Planned Parenthood among others. Yu’s one-act A Sand Romance was a 2016 Heidman Award finalist. Her arts writing has been published by Hyperallergic and her poetry in a Dutch Kills Press 2020 pandemic anthology. She has served as a grants panelist for the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and Brooklyn Arts Council. As an educator, she has worked as a GED tutor for federal prison inmates, an ESL tutor in China and is currently a tutor to elementary school children. A New Yorker based in Chicago, she is currently a resident playwright of Chicago Dramatists. BA: Stanford University. MFA: New York University.

Ragland has also served as Artist-in-Residence for OZ Arts Nashville during its 2020-21 Season as he prepared for the debut of his opera Steal Away in collaboration with Inversion Vocal Ensemble, Diaspora Orchestra, and shackled feet Dance. Ragland received a Midsouth Regional EMMY nomination for composition and music direction for the Frist Art Museum’s Nick Cave FEAT. Nashville. Most recently, Dave Ragland collaborated with librettist Mary McCallum to create the children’s opera Charlie and the Wolf for Cedar Rapids Opera, and educational opera Beatrice for Portland Opera. Ragland was commissioned to compose the song cycle “To Harlem, With Love” for Russell Thomas and LA Opera. He arranged “Lift Every Voice and Sing” for GRAMMY-nominated opera singer Lawrence Brownlee for “Concert for Inauguration Day” presented by Washington National Opera. Additional composition performance credits include Nashville Symphony, Nashville Ballet, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Intersection Contemporary Ensemble, chatterbird, and GRAMMY-nominated ALIAS Chamber Ensemble. He was the 2020 GRADY-RAYAM Negro Spirituals Foundation Composer-in Residence, and a member of the inaugural cohort of composers for the National Teachers of Singing (NATS) Mentoring Program. Ragland was awarded Outstanding Music Director by First Night Honors for Nashville Repertory Theater’s Ragtime and has served as Chorusmaster for Nashville Symphony’s “Let Freedom Sing.” As the Artistic Director of Inversion Vocal Ensemble, he oversees the regionally touring vocal collective, that has performed with Brandi Carlile, GRAMMY-nominee Ruby Amanfu, Marcus Hummon, and Levi Hummon. Inversion has also shared the stage with Rivers Rutherford, The Fairfield Four, and Tanya Tucker. Previous engagements with Inversion include The National Civil Rights Museum, The National Museum of African-American Music, The Ryman Auditorium, Tennessee Arts Academy, Cheekwood, Nashville Symphony’s Free Day of Music and Let Freedom Sing. He was a Composer Mentor for 91Classical’s inaugural Student Composer Fellowship. Previous performance experience includes William Warfield, Louise Mandrell, and the Kennedy Center Honors with Jennifer Hudson. Ragland currently serves on the board of American Choral Directors Association, Tennessee Chapter and is a proud member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia.

Modern was most recently developed at the Bloomington Playwrights Project in February 2022. With Autumn Reeser and Derek Gregor, she is developing the new musical Particle, which had its first workshop at the Imagen program through Michigan State University in the fall of 2021. Sahin wrote the lyrics to the musical short film Grind starring Anthony Rapp. Her musical All Fall Down (music and lyrics) was developed at NYMF (directed by Lonny Price), Penn State NuMusicals and TheatreLab. She wrote the lyrics to the children’s musical He Said/She Said, which toured the Northeast in 2017. Her song “Filling Space” received a single-song publishing contract with Anthem Entertainment in Nashville, and her song “The Storm” was a finalist for the Great American Song Contest. She co-wrote the pop album “Greater Things” with Eric Krop (Broadway’s Godspell) and Derek Gregor, and songs from Payson Lewis’ debut EP.

As an artist, Shilts is interested in creating music that’s expressionistic in emotion, but surreal in experience through temporal manipulation and the distortion of sound.

Shilts has participated in festivals including the Walden Creative Musicians Retreat, Charlotte New Music Festival, Hypercube Composition Lab, and Longy’s Divergent studio; their work has been performed by ensembles such as the Mivos Quartet, Hypercube, and Loadbang. In June of 2022, Shilts’ second chamber opera “Samhain Bloom” was premiered as part of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama Opera Makers programme. Shilts is enrolled at the University of Miami pursuing a DMA in composition.

Current commissions include The Interaction Effect with composer Pamela Stein Lynde for Fresh Squeezed Opera’s 2025 season. Her opera Caravana de mujeres with composer Nicolas Lell Benavides is in development with MassOpera’s New Opera Workshop. Her works include the operas 75 Miles with composer Matt Boehler, Henna Leaves and Uprising with composer Aleksandra Weil, the musicals How To Create A Young Girl with composer TJ Rubin, Miss Havisham’s Wedding with lyricist David Gomez and composer Jude Obermüller, and The Electric Brain’s We Regret To Inform You That Reza Is Dead. Her writing has been performed in New York City at the American Opera Project, Opera America, The Tank, Prospect Theater Company, NYMF, The Duplex, and Don’t Tell Mama; and regionally at Washington National Opera, Lowbrow Opera Collective, Barrington Stage Company, Two River Theater, Stage Femmes, and Music Theatre Kansas City. She is a founding member of the Chicago-based devising collective The Electric Brain. She received her M.F.A. in Graduate Musical Theatre Writing from NYU Tisch. 

In 2016, Felix was featured on PBS and nominated for a Lonestar Emmy for work on his 6-Piano Project, in which he restored six pianos for a concert featuring two new works. After the concert, he donated the pianos to low-resourced schools in Austin, TX. The 6-Piano Project has since been commissioned in San Antonio (2016), Barcelona (2017), Melbourne (2017), and Houston (2019).

Felix often focuses on telling Latinx-themed and minority stories that highlight border issues, underserved communities, and his Hispanic heritage. Transitioning from leading an indie-rock band in 2013, Felix began composing for orchestra, choral, and later, for opera. In 2018 he was recognized for his Opera on a Bus and his conceptual creation of The War Bride – a “headphone opera” – a concept he expanded upon at the Fringe Festivals in Orlando, Austin, and San Antonio. Recent works have included the operas Alien Wanderers : Alien World : Alien Home (2019), Öcalan (2020), Ribas-Dominicci (2021), and La Malinche – Traitor | Savior (2022). Felix also premiered his Third Symphony in Austin, TX in 2022. Additionally, the composer served as an official music ambassador to China for the United States. He extended that commitment by composing a series of public service announcements for an international campaign by Livestrong to raise awareness of cancer treatment in China and Mexico. In 2014, Felix reformed his band, The Noise Revival Orchestra, and toured Asia. Tour highlights included festival dates in Japan and Taiwan performing to crowds of 35,000 and 50,000 people.

As a co-Founder/Leader of Georgetown’s Racial Justice Institute, Gonzalez contributes to projects which foreground experiences and histories of the under-represented. Her essays advocate for informed cultural exchange across domestic and international settings.

Gonzalez, a scholar of Performing Arts and African American Studies, has published articles about performance histories and cultures in the Radical History Review, Modern Drama, Theatre Research International, and Dance Research Journal. She has edited and authored four books: Performance, Dance and Political Economy (Bloomsbury), Black Performance Theory (Duke), Afro-Mexico: Dancing Between Myth and Reality (U-Texas Press), and Jarocho’s Soul (Rowan Littlefield). Additional essays about intercultural performance appear in the edited collections African Performance Arts and Political Acts, Black Acting Methods, Narratives in Black British Dance, The Community Performance Reade, and the Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theatre.

Gonzalez was previously an Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and a Professor of Theatre at the University of Michigan where she promoted interdisciplinary performance initiatives including Conjuring the Caribbean, a research/residency/installation, and the Anishinaabe Theatre Exchange, a storytelling incubator for Native American artists. Her theatre practice includes developing theatrical works focused on telling women’s stories and histories. She is a producer/director/librettist who encourages artists to develop beautiful art crafted for social activism and consciousness raising. Recent works include the libretto Courthouse Bells about voting rights to be produced by Boston Opera Collaborative, Zora on My Mind about Black women’s empowerment and Ybor City the Musical about Afro-Cuban cigar rollers in Tampa, Florida. Dr. Gonzalez (Ph.D. University of Wisconsin) is a member of the National Theatre Conference, the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab, the American Society for Theatre Research and co-series editor of the Women’s Innovations in Theater Dance and Performance: Leaders volume for Bloomsbury Press.