Opera America recently announced the eight recipients of the latest round of its Discovery Grants for Women Composers, designed to support women composers early in their career in the development of new operas. The recipients' proposed operas focus on topics ranging from exploring one's roots and identity to historical narratives. A Tempo host Rachel Katz this week chats with the creators of two of them: Beth Ratay, whose work The Morpheus Quartet follows four quartet members through their dreams one night; and Bahar Royaee, along with other members of a group of Iranian women composers - Mercedeh Gholami, Niloufar Nourbakhsh, Homa Samiei, Aida Shirazi, and Niloufar Shiri - and producer Brigid Bergin Davidson, who are working together on Nava Avaz, which portrays a young Iranian woman jailed for not covering her hair who finds inspiration from the past.
