Trailblazers
In a few short years, the Opera Grants for Female Composers (OGFC) program has gone a long way toward addressing gender parity in opera composition. In 2013, when the program was established, OPERA America in its decades-long history of support for new American opera had bestowed merely five percent of its grant funding to works by women. But OGFC, founded with support from the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, has to date awarded an impressive $700,000 toward repertoire by female composers. “We’re seeing works by women gain traction on stages across North America,” says Marc A. Scorca, president/CEO of OPERA America. “This year, we received more applications for Commissioning Grants than ever before, which is a testament to our members’ investment in operas by female composers.”
The Commissioning Grants arm of OGFC has provided a total of $100,000 this year for commissions from six companies. Three of the composers represented are first-time OGFC grantees: Missy Mazzoli, Rachel J. Peters and Paola Prestini, all fixtures of New York’s new-music scene. The other three are former recipients of OGFC Discovery Grants: Laura Kaminsky, for As One in 2014; Sheila Silver, for A Thousand Splendid Suns in 2014; and Nkeiru Okoye, for We’ve Got Our Eye on You in 2016. (While Commissioning Grants of up to $50,000 are awarded to the producing organizations in support of commissions, Discovery Grants of up to $15,000, adjudicated separately, are awarded to the composers themselves.)
