Beth Morrison Projects Announces Landmark 20th Anniversary 2025-2026 Season

The landmark season centers around BMP: SONGBOOK, featuring selections of music from their 65 commissioned and produced opera and music-theatre works which will be performed in concert, released as a double album, and made available as an anthology of sheet music and a commemorative retrospective book.

BMP will present the rolling World Premiere of HILDEGARD, an opera based on the life of Hildegard von Bingen, with music and libretto by Sarah Kirkland Snider, November 5-9 in Los Angeles with LA Opera and The Wallis, and January 9-17 in New York City at the 2026 PROTOTYPE Festival.

The 2026 PROTOTYPE Festival where BMP will assume the role of sole producer and presenter, will feature the New York Premiere of Michael Gordon and Richard Foreman's What to wear and and rolling World Premiere of Sarah Kirkland Snider's HILDEGARD. The program also includes two world premieres: The All Sing, composed by Jens Ibsen with a libretto by Julian Talamantez Brolaski, and Precipice, conceived and designed by Susan Zeeman Rogers, with music by Rima Fand and a libretto by Karen Fisher.  Additional programming includes co-presentations with Death of Classical and Art Bath.

OperaFest LA 2026 will be a month-long, city-wide celebration of opera’s presence and future in Los Angeles, with BMP joining LA Opera, LA Phil, Pacific Opera Project, The Wallis, REDCAT, Synchromy, Overtone Industries, and others for a dynamic lineup of performances and events. 

BMP will host the second round of its third cycle of BMP: NEXTGEN, its celebrated competition for early-career composers of vocal-theatre, on May 14-15, 2026, showcasing the workshop performances of semi-finalists Harriet Steinke and Anuj Bhutani's 30-minute BMP-commissioned works.

Touring productions include Book of Mountains and Seas, with music and libretto by Huang Ruo, Black Lodge, with music by David T. Little and libretto by Anne Waldman, and The Old Man and the Sea, with music by Paola Prestini and libretto by Royce Vavrek. 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - July 23, 2025 (New York, NY) - Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) is thrilled to announce its 20th anniversary season, a celebration of two decades of groundbreaking work that also continues their mission with four World Premieres and Regional Premieres across the globe. Additionally, BMP will become the sole producer and presenter of the 2026 PROTOTYPE Festival – the acclaimed new opera and music-theatre festival they co-founded with HERE.

BMP's landmark season looks back on a legacy that has fundamentally changed how contemporary opera is created, with more than 60 different works commissioned, produced, and toured in 15 different countries, two Pulitzer Prize-winning operas, and a GRAMMY^TM-nominated recording. BMP also looks ahead to an ever-expanding national and international impact that spans from their offices in New York City and Los Angeles to their global touring productions, and will include 13 new commissions over the next five years by Justin Hicks and Nathan Davis, Kamala Sankaram and André de Quadros, Juhi Bansal and Neil Aitken, Molly Joyce and Zoe Moore, Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa and Angel Dye, Niloufar Nourbakhsh and Stephanie Fleischmann, Daniel Bernard Roumain and Marc Bamuthi Joseph, and more.

Said BMP Founder, President & Creative Producer Beth Morrison of the season: "We've been on an electrifying and unforgettable journey these past 20 years, and it's deeply inspiring to take stock of all that we've achieved together. When I started BMP 20 years ago from my Upper East side studio apartment, with a dream to create a new kind of opera, I never imagined that we could be a leader in the field.  We've had the privilege of cultivating the careers of today's greatest composers and creatives, helping them develop from discovery, to breathing life into their first commissions, to becoming the leaders of our art form. Together, we have redefined the nature of contemporary Opera, and our work is only just beginning – the world has never needed raw, relevant art more desperately than it does now, and BMP is more committed than ever to telling the stories our time through music and drama with unflinching honesty." 

The 2025-26 season will center around BMP: SONGBOOK, an anthology of 21st Century Repertoire that marks two decades of unprecedented contributions to American opera. This initiative spans across a live performance, a commercial double-album recording, a sheet music anthology and a commemorative retrospective book. The BMP: SONGBOOK Anthology will contain a collection of 75 arias from the 65 opera and music-theatre works commissioned and produced by BMP, published by Just A Theory. The Commemorative Retrospective Book, with design by Morcos Key, will give a richly-illustrated history of BMP's story thus far through photos, archival materials, interviews, and more. A BMP: SONGBOOK double-album will be released on Bright Shiny Things, produced by GRAMMYTM Award-winning producer Blanton Alspaugh, featuring newly recorded, archival, and previously-released arias selected from the Anthology. Capping everything will be a BMP: SONGBOOK Live Concert on January 7 at National Sawdust, as a part of the 2026 PROTOTYPE Festival, with a 20th year celebration party to follow.

Another highlight of the 20th anniversary season will be the rolling World Premiere of Sarah Kirkland Snider's HILDEGARD, running November 5-9 in Los Angeles with LA Opera, and January 9-17 in New York at the PROTOTYPE Festival. Snider's first opera (in development since 2017) for which she wrote both the music and libretto, explores a pivotal moment in the life of 12th-century German Benedictine nun, mystic and composer Hildegard von Bingen, and will be directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer and conducted by Gabriel Crouch. Ahead of its rolling world premiere, HILDEGARD will be featured in a Works & Process program at the Guggenheim on September 15, featuring a conversation with Beth Morrison, Christopher Koelsch of LA Opera, Snider, director Elkhanah Pulitzer with  performances by Nola Richardson, Mikaela Bennett and Contemporaneous and a post-performance reception.

From January 7-19, 2026, BMP will assume the role of sole producer and presenter of the acclaimed PROTOTYPE Festival, originally co-founded with HERE in 2013. The centerpiece of the 2026 festival will be the New York Premiere of What to wear, a comedic post-rock opera by composer Michael Gordon and the late downtown theater renegade icon Richard Foreman, who penned over 50 plays and nine operas across five decades. This production – the opera's first re-mount in 20 years – will bring back to life Foreman's original staging and production, with creative direction by Big Dance Theater co-founders Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar. The opera offers a commentary on the superficial pressures of society, at a moment when our contemporary world of Instagram, fast fashion and influencer culture renders Foreman and Gordon's critiques more cutting and relevant than ever. A collaboration between BAM, Beth Morrison Projects, PROTOTYPE, and Bang on a Can, this historic re-staging honors Foreman's legacy after his passing earlier this year, and confirms Gordon as one of contemporary music's singular voices. 

Additional PROTOTYPE programming includes the world premieres of Precipice, conceived by Susan Zeeman Rogres, with music by Rima Fand and libretto by Karen Fisher, and The All Sing, composed by BMP: NEXTGEN semifinalist Jens Ibsen and Julian Talamantez Brolaski. The Festival will also include the BMP: SONGBOOK Concert, the underground cabaret Tiergarten by Death of Classical, the NY Premiere of HILDEGARD by Sarah Kirkland Snider, and an immersive artist salon by Art Bath.

The 2025-2026 season will also see several BMP productions touring internationally. From August 14-16, Book of Mountains and Seas, with music and libretto by Huang Ruo and production direction by Basil Twist, will be presented at the Edinburgh International Festival in Scotland. On October 10 and 12, the operatic adaption of Ernest Hemingway's classic novel The Old Man and the Sea with music by Paola Prestini and libretto by Royce Vavrek with direction and co-creation by Karmina Šilec, will be co-presented by Opera Columbus and the Wexner Center for the Arts  in Columbus, Ohio. Black Lodge, the industrial rock opera composed by David T. Little with libretto by Anne Waldman, which received a GRAMMYTM Award-nomination in 2023 and its acclaimed NYC Premiere during the 2025 PROTOTYPE Festival, will embark on a tour of Sweden in the fall, with presentations at Malmö Opera on November 21 and 22, and Folkoperan in Stockholm on November 25 and 26.  

OperaFest LA 2026 is a city-wide festival of opera taking place in May 2026, celebrating the depth and diversity of Los Angeles’s opera scene. Highlights include BMP and REDCAT’s co-production of Jodie Landau’s Performance of Self, the LA Phil performing Wagner’s Die Walküre, Pacific Opera Project’s production of Héctor Armienta’s Zorro, and contributions from LA Opera and more.       

BMP will host the second round of its third cycle of BMP: NEXTGEN, its celebrated competition for early-career composers of vocal-theatre, on May 14-15, 2026. First launched in 2017-18, the BMP: NEXTGEN was created to empower and inspire the next wave of visionary composers, singers, and artists. By bridging the gap between academic study and professional artistry, this program nurtures emerging talents, offering them the platform and resources they need to revolutionize opera and music-theatre. Round 2 will showcase the workshop performances of semi-finalists Harriet Steinke and Anuj Bhutani's 30-minute BMP-commissioned works.

 

Beth Morrison Projects

Prototype Festival

 

Performance Listings

Sarah Kirkland Snider's HILDEGARD: Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum

September 15, 2025
The Guggenheim Museum
New York, NY

Ahead of its rolling world premiere this November in Los Angeles with LA Opera and in New York at the PROTOTYPE Festival, HILDEGARD—the first opera by acclaimed composer Sarah Kirkland Snider—will be the subject of a special Works & Process event at the Guggenheim. This pre-premiere program offers a behind-the-scenes look at the opera’s development, featuring a conversation with creative producer Beth Morrison, LA Opera President and CEO Christopher Koelsch, composer Sarah Kirkland Snider, director Elkhanah Pulitzer, and a representative from the Aspen Music Festival. Vocalists Nola Richardson and Mikaela Bennett with Contemporaneous will perform excerpts from the work, which tells an intimate story of two visionary women finding—and claiming—their voices. A post-performance reception in the Guggenheim rotunda will follow.

 

HILDEGARD (Rolling World Premiere)

November 5-9, 2025
The Wallis
Los Angeles, CA

Composer and Librettist: Sarah Kirkland Snider
Director: Elkhanah Pulitzer | Conductor: Gabriel Crouch

HILDEGARD is a contemporary opera that explores key moments the life of 12th-century German Benedictine visionary/composer/polymath Hildegard von Bingen. Set around the story of two gifted women struggling to find their voices in a time and place where female voices were forbidden, HILDEGARD is a story of love, awakening, and devotion in the face of doubt. It is about the desire for connection – to humanity, to spirituality – and the conflicts that compete therein.

 

BMP: SONGBOOK Concert

January 7 & 8, 2026

National Sawdust
Brooklyn, NY

Curated and Directed by Beth Morrison

To celebrate its 20th anniversary season, Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) presents BMP: SONGBOOK, a two-night concert celebrating two decades of groundbreaking contributions to American opera. The program features highlights from the 65 works BMP has commissioned and produced, performed by the acclaimed artists who brought them to life. Following the first performance, a launch party and fundraiser will mark the release of the BMP: SONGBOOK Anthology—a two-volume collection of sheet music of more than 75 arias; the companion BMP: SONGBOOK album with a “Best of BMP” vinyl; and a commemorative visual history book with interviews from core artists and collaborators. Following the premiere on the 7th will be a 20th anniversary celebratory party!

 

HILDEGARD (Rolling World Premiere)

Presented by BRIC and PROTOTYPE

January 9-11, 14, 16-17, 2026
BRIC Arts Media
Brooklyn, NY

Composer and Librettist: Sarah Kirkland Snider
Director: Elkhanah Pulitzer| Conductor: Gabriel Crouch

 

What to wear (NY Premiere)

co-presented by BAM and PROTOTYPE

January 15-17, 2026
Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM)
Brooklyn, NY 

Composer: Michael Gordon
Librettist & Director: Richard Foreman
Creative Direction by Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar
Conducted by Alan Pierson

What to wear is a post-rock opera created by experimental theater director and playwright Richard Foreman and composer Michael Gordon. The production features a series of operatic tableaux presented in Foreman's distinctive surrealist style. As the narrative progresses, themes of transformation and perception emerge, exploring shifting ideas of appearance and identity in a contemporary context.

 

The All Sing (World Premiere)

January 11, 2026
The Red Stairs in Times Square
New York, NY

Composer: Jens Ibsen
Libretto: Julian Talamantez Brolaski

The All Sing is an ode to song and human connection that brings hundreds of people together in a vibrant tapestry of sound, poetic justice, and hope. This world premiere choral piece and immersive experience will take place on the red steps in Times Square and will be performed by a mix of professional and volunteer singers.

 

Precipice (World Premiere)

co-presented by La Mama and PROTOTYPE

January 8-11, 2026
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
New York, NY

Concept and Production Design by Susan Zeeman
Music by Rima Fand
Libretto by Karen Fisher
Direction by Mallory Catlett
Music Direction by Mila Henry

Precipice is a contemporary fairy tale about a young woman fighting to find her own voice and power as a woman. Told as an object theatre/chamber opera, Precipice sets an intimate story against epic natural landscapes, created with hand-made paper dioramas and live feed video.

 

Tiergarten

January 15-17, 2026

Venue to be announced

Co-presented by Death of Classical

This immersive, subversive, underground cabaret event takes its name from the Tiergarten—“The Garden of Beasts”—a sprawling central park around which the murderous leaders of the Third Reich rose to power. The program traces a path backwards in time, exploring historic moments of societal madness through music ranging from Verdi to Kylie Minogue, Dean Martin to Max Richter, William Byrd to Brecht & Weill, with a panoply of performers that includes singers, dancers, actors, shadow puppets, and more.

 

Art Bath 

January 16-17, 2026

Venue to be announced

Co-presented with Art Bath
Co-curated and produced by Mara Driscoll and Liz Yilmaz

Art Bath draws from the tradition of the art salon to create a multi-sensory artistic journey. Known for fusing disciplines such as opera, music, theater, puppetry, and visual art, Art Bath presents an eclectic range of world-class performers, unexpected collaborations, and the thrill of new work unfolding in real time—all in a space transformed to invite curiosity, connection, and creative surprise.

 

BMP: NEXTGEN Cycle 3, Round 2

May 14-15, 2026

Venue to be announced 

BMP will host the second round of its third cycle of BMP: NEXTGEN, its celebrated competition for early-career composers of vocal-theatre, on May 14-15, 2026. Round 2 will showcase the workshop performances of semi-finalists Harriet Steinke and Anuj Bhutani's 30-minute BMP-commissioned works. First launched in 2017-18, the BMP: NEXTGEN was created to empower and inspire the next wave of visionary composers, singers, and artists.

 

About Beth Morrison Projects

Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) is the foremost creator and producer of new opera and music theatre, with a fierce commitment to telling the stories of our time, cultivating a new generation of talent, and collaborating with them to lead the field into a more inclusive, innovative, and relevant future. 

Founded in 2006 by “contemporary opera mastermind” (LA Times) Beth Morrison, who was honored as one of Musical America’s Artists of the Year/Agents of Change in 2020, BMP now operates across the US and internationally, with offices in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, and is “a driving force behind America’s thriving opera scene” (Financial Times), with Opera News declaring that the company, “more than any other… has helped propel the art form into the twenty-first century.”

BMP has commissioned, developed, produced, and toured over 65 works in 15 countries around the world, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning chamber operas Angel’s Bone (Du Yun/Royce Vavrek) and p r i s m (Ellen Reid/Roxie Perkins) and GRAMMY^TM-nominated Black Lodge (David T. Little/Anne Waldman), with performances at prestigious venues and festivals such as Brooklyn Academy of Music, Edinburgh International Festival, Walt Disney Hall, The Barbican, Lincoln Center, The Walker Art Center, The Beijing Music Festival, New Visions Arts Festival, The Holland Festival, O Festival Rotterdam, and more. Recent and upcoming projects include works by composers Juhi Bansal, Justin Hicks, Michael Gordon, Molly Joyce, Jodie Landau, Niloufar Nourbakhsh, Paola Prestini, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Huang Ruo, Kamala Sankaram, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa, working with multi-disciplinary collaborators including Rachel Dickstein, Jerron Herman, Zoe Aja Moore, Jennifer Harrison Newman, Elkhanah Pulitzer, Jay Scheib, Karmina Šilec, Timur, Basil Twist, and Michael VQ.

BMP is committed to fostering the next generation of creatives through its inclusive and industry-shaping programs Producer Academy and NEXTGEN. BMP: Producer Academy is an 8-week course funded by The Mellon Foundation that supports early-career producers by providing mentorship, networking, and personal growth opportunities. It has served over 1100 students from 19 countries, welcoming applicants from diverse backgrounds and abilities to receive high-quality training without financial barriers. BMP: NEXTGEN is a program which invites emerging composers, singers, and artists to submit vocal works to a panel of music industry professionals, for a chance to have their work commissioned for a world premiere production in New York and Los Angeles.

In 2013, BMP co-founded the PROTOTYPE Festival with HERE Arts Center, which has been called “utterly essential” (The New York Times), “indispensable” (The New Yorker), and “one of the world’s top festivals of contemporary opera and theater” (Associated Press). With the 2026 Festival, BMP will assume the role of sole curator and producer for the first time. Through PROTOTYPE and its broader work and programs, BMP is creating a vibrant, sustainable, and deeply relevant future for opera and music-theatre.

 

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