Gregory Spears (composer)

Gregory Spears' music work has been called “astonishingly beautiful" (The New York Times), and “coolly entrancing" (The New Yorker). In recent seasons, he has been commissioned by The Lyric Opera of Chicago, The Cincinnati Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Seraphic Fire, New York Polyphony, The Crossing choir, trumpeter Brandon Ridenour and the JACK Quartet among others. Spears' most recent evening length opera, Fellow Travelers, was written with playwright Greg Pierce and premiered in 2016 at Cincinnati Opera. It will be performed this season at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Prototype Festival, and Minnesota Opera. It was hailed as “one of the most accomplished new operas I have seen in recent years" (Chicago Tribune) and an opera that “seems assured of lasting appeal" (The New York Times). A commercial recording was released on the Fanfare Cincinnati label in fall of 2017. Spears' children's opera Jason and the Argonauts, written with Kathryn Walat, premiered in the summer of 2016 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and was subsequently performed on tour the following fall. His opera about space exploration, O Columbia, was written in collaboration with Royce Vavrek and premiered in 2015 at Houston Grand Opera. Spears and Walat’s first opera, Paul’s Case, was described as a “masterpiece" and a “gem" (New York Observer) with “ravishing music" (New York Times). It was developed by American Opera Projects, premiered by Urban Arias in 2013, restaged at the PROTOTYPE Festival, and presented in a new production by Pittsburgh Opera in 2014. Spears has won prizes from BMI and ASCAP as well as awards and fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Vagn Holmboe Competition, Yaddo and The MacDowell Colony. His music is published by Schott Music and Schott PSNY.