Inside PROTOTYPE 2027 — A Conversation with OperaWireInside PROTOTYPE 2027 — A Conversation with OperaWire

A Grammy-nominated producer, recipient of the Musical America Award for Artist of the Year/Agent of Change and a Kennedy Center NEXT50 Honoree, Beth Morrison is an opera-theatre producer and the President and Creative Producer of Beth Morrison Projects and the co-Founding Director of PROTOTYPE: Opera/ Theatre/ Now Festival. Morrison is noted as a “contemporary opera mastermind” (LA Times) and “a powerhouse leading the industry to new heights” (WQXR). Beth created Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) in 2006 to identify and support the work of emerging and established living composers, and to change the opera industry by cultivating a new generation of talent and telling the stories of our time. BMP has commissioned, developed, produced and toured over 65 works in 19 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). Opera News has noted, “More than any other figure in the opera industry, Beth Morrison has helped propel the art form into the twenty-first century." In 2013, Beth co-founded the PROTOTYPE Festival for which she serves as Artist Director, which has become “essential to the evolution of American opera” (New Yorker). Morrison is also in demand as a speaker both nationally and internationally and has delivered key note speeches for Classical: Next, Opera America, Opera Europa, Mannes School of Music/ The New School, among others. Morrison holds a Bachelor of Music from Boston University, a Master of Music from Arizona State University, and an MFA from Yale School of Drama. Beth is also a Lecturer at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University.

Jennifer Pyron is the Managing Editor and a writer for OperaWire since 2017. She is also a member of the Music Critics Association of North America and Music Theory Society of New York State. Her work covers a wide range of opera performances and festivals in NYC and Europe, including Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival, Beth Morrison Projects PROTOTYPE Festival, Brooklyn Art Song Society, Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Columbia University, Death of Classical (NYC), Glyndebourne Opera Festival (U.K.), Göteborg Opera (Sweden), Guggenheim Museum’s Works & Process Series (NYC), Innsbruck Early Music Festival (Austria), Japan Society, La Mama, Les Talens Lyriques Orchestra, Lincoln Center Theater, Macerata Opera Festival (Sferisterio Arena, Italy), Manhattan School of Music, Metropolitan Opera, MetLiveArts, Monteverdi Festival (Italy), National Sawdust, Orange Mountain Music (Philip Glass works), Pietrasanta in Concerto (Italy), Roulette Intermedium (Robert Ashley works), Santa Fe Opera, Sofia Opera & Ballet (Bulgaria), Teatro alla Scala, Teatro La Fenice, The Frick Collection (NYC), The Grange Festival (U.K.), The Juilliard School, United Nations (NYC), Versailles Royal Opera Orchestra, and the Whitney Museum.