Kaminsky and Brevoort Appointed Creative Directors of Seattle Opera's Jane Lang Davis Creation Lab

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The composer and librettist will redesign the curriculum and mentor emerging opera artists in the Pacific Northwest.

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Seattle Opera announced today that composer Laura Kaminsky and librettist Deborah Brevoort have been named Creative Directors of the company's new-works incubator program, the Jane Lang Davis Creation Lab . Kaminsky and Brevoort, who both previously served as Creation Lab mentors, will redesign the Creation Lab curriculum and serve as mentors for up-and-coming composers and librettists looking to tell diverse and innovative stories on the opera stage.

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“For opera to continue to thrive in the US, it must speak to the current moment and bring to the stage new stories that resonate with contemporary audiences,” said Brevoort. “But to do that we need composers and librettists trained in the art of writing for the opera stage. As we enter this new phase of the program, I ask, what would an opera based in Pacific Northwest life sound and look like? What kinds of stories would it tell? The Jane Lang Creation Lab provides that training to the Pacific Northwest's most talented artists.”

“There has been a resurgence of new work in American opera over the last 15 years, fueled by the audience's need for stories that speak to contemporary life in the diverse communities that make up America,” added Kaminsky, whose operas As One and Lucidity were produced by Seattle Opera in 2016 and 2024. “These works tell stories about the world in which we live, are smaller in scale, shorter in length, and diverse in musical style. This growing body of chamber opera that addresses current issues of our day is creating vibrancy in a field often thought to be ‘old world' and ‘stuffy.' I am eager to foster the next generation of creators as they explore the creative and dramatic possibilities of this genre.”

Established in 2020, the Jane Lang Davis Creation Lab seeks to cultivate emerging opera composers and librettists from the Pacific Northwest. Over the course of an 18-month program, three composer-librettist teams will learn the craft of collaborative writing for the opera stage, receiving support from professional composers and librettists as they develop their work. The program culminates in the presentation of new, 20-minute works at the Opera Center in March 2028. Previous projects have received subsequent performances at companies such as Kitsap Opera and Lowbrow Opera Collective

“We are very excited for Laura and Deborah to spearhead this program,” said Lōkela Alexander Minami, Co-Director of Programs & Partnerships, Community Engagement. “They are not only leaders in the field, but also experienced instructors with deep connections to the Pacific Northwest. Under their guidance, we have sharpened and expanded this training program, and we can't wait to see how the next cohort of participants will bring the innovative spirit of the region to bear on this powerfully expressive and adaptable art form of opera.”

Seattle Opera welcomes applications from composers, songwriters, librettists, lyricists, playwrights, and poets of all genres who reside in Washington, Oregon, or Idaho and are at least 18 years of age. Applications for the 2028 cohort are now open, with a deadline of August 2, 2026. Applications and eligibility requirements can be found at seattleopera.org/creationlab .

Deborah Brevoort writes plays, musicals and operas. In 2023, she was awarded the Campbell Opera Librettist Prize from Opera America and is best known for The Knock, her opera about military spouses; Blue Moon Over Memphis, her Noh Drama about Elvis Presley , regularly produced in Japan; and her play, The Women of Lockerbie, produced internationally. She is a long-time educator and currently serves as the Librettist Mentor to the American Opera Initiative at Washington National Opera and for the American Lyric Theatre in New York. She is also a Fulbright Specialist in opera and theatre for the US State Department where she taught the first-ever opera writing workshop at the Seoul Institute of the Arts in South Korea in 2024.

A three-time winner of the Frontiers Festival at Ft. Worth Opera, Deborah has written 12 opera librettos which were commissioned and produced by leading opera companies in the U.S. such as Glimmerglass Festival, Cincinnati Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Ft. Worth Opera, On-Site Opera, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Opera Colorado, American Lyric Theater, the Decameron Opera Coalition, Fargo Moorhead and Anchorage Opera. She has also authored over 10 plays that are regularly produced at leading theatres in the US and abroad, including her latest, My Lord, What a Night, about Marian Anderson and Albert Einstein, which was staged at Seattle's Tap Root Theatre and the historic Ford's Theatre in Washington DC. Her critically acclaimed comedy about NASA's Apollo engineers, The Blue-Sky Boys, recently completed an extended, sold-out run at Florida Studio Theatre.

Her opera librettos include: The Knock, with Aleksandra Vrebalov (made into a film, on YouTube); Murasaki's Moon with Michi Wiancko; Embedded and Albert Nobbs with Patrick Soluri; Steal a Pencil for Me with Gerald Cohen; Dinner 4 3 with Michael Ching; Quamino's Map with Errolyn Wallen; and new adaptations of Strauss's Die Fledermaus and Mozart's The Impresario for the Anchorage Opera. A recording of Steal a Pencil for Me was recently released by Sono Luminus.

She is currently writing two children's operas: Silverwing, with Dean Burry, for Tulsa Opera and Canadian Children's Opera Company and The Snow Queen 2.0, with B. E Boykin for the Glimmerglass Festival. She is also working on The Red Thread, about Chinese girls adopted by American families, with Wang Lu, which received a Discovery grant from Opera America, and Where Flowers Bloom, about Lady Bird Johnson, with Laura Kaminsky.

In musical theatre, Deborah is a two-time winner of the Frederick Loewe award for Coyote Goes Salmon Fishing, with Scott Davenport Richards , and King Island Christmas, based on the Alaskan children's book, with David Friedman . Her new musical Loving, about Loving v. the State of Virginia with famed jazz composer Diedre Murray , will be developed next year in the new works program at The Apollo Theatre

Deborah taught for many years in the NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing program and the MFA playwriting program at Columbia University and serves as an ongoing mentor to the NBO Musical Theatre Initiative in Nairobi, Kenya. Deborahbrevoort.com

Possessing “an ear for the new and interesting” (The New York Times), frequently addresses social and political issues in her work. Her first opera, As One (co-librettists Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed ), is the most produced contemporary opera since its 2014 premiere, with 65+ productions internationally. Other operas: Some Light Emerges and Today It Rains (Campbell & Reed); Hometown to the World ( Kimberly Reed ); Finding Wright (Andrea Fellows Fineberg); February (co-librettist with novelist Lisa Moore); Lucidity ( David Cote ); Time To Act (Crystal Manich); The Post Office (Elaine Sexton); and, forthcoming, The Song of the Lark (Fineberg). Classical Voice America posits that "Kaminsky writes effectively for the voice, whether in searing, soul-baring arias and duets or recitative-like passages that propel the narrative," while American Record Guide notes that her music is “full of fire as well as ice, contrasting dissonance and violence with tonal beauty and meditative reflection.” Kaminsky has written a Piano Concerto and a Piano Quintet for internationally renowned pianist Ursula Oppens, and two string quartets for the acclaimed Fry Street Quartet, with whom she recently collaborated on a score for the documentary series Poetry in America. Awarded the Polish Gold Cross of Merit (Zloty Krzyż Zasługi RP) by the President of Poland for exemplary public service/humanitarian work, Kaminsky has been recognized by the NEA, Koussevitzky Music Foundation at the Library of Congress, Opera America, Chamber Music America, and USArtists International, among others. On the faculties at SUNY Purchase and Boston Conservatory/Berklee, Kaminsky is the co-director, with librettist Deborah Brevoort , of Seattle Opera's Creation Lab. Recordings of her music can be found on the Affeto, Albany, Bridge, BSS, Cedille, CRI, Capstone, Mode, MSR, and Navona labels. laurakaminsky.com

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/seattle/article/Laura-Kaminsky-and-Deborah-Brevoort-Named-Creative-Directors-of-Seattle-Operas-Jane-Lang-Davis-Creation-Lab-20260608)._