Creator During the 2023-2024 Season

American composer and lyricist Nkeiru Okoye has been hailed as “gripping” and “evocative” by the New York Times. Okoye won The American Prize in vocal chamber music for her song cycle, We Met At the Symphony. She is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow and a 2021-23 Hermitage Artist Retreat Fellow. In 2020, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra appointed her Composer-in-Residence for their “Classical Roots Festival,” featuring her work, Black Bottom. 

Okoye’s music has been commissioned, performed, and presented by orchestras and opera houses throughout North America and Europe. Okoye believes in engaging communities through her music. She is a mentor composer for the National Association of Teachers of Singing Art Song Initiative and the American Opera Project, Composers, and the Voice program. Her music is published exclusively through Theodore Presser.