Musical America

Musical America Announces 2025 Artist of the Year Awards
November 2024

Composer of the Year Jake Heggie is perhaps the most performed contemporary opera composer working today: To date, his 2000 opera Dead Man Walking has been mounted over 75 times on five continents; his 2010 Moby-Dick is scheduled for its Met Opera premiere in March 2025; Earth 2.0 premieres December 6, 2024, with the Fort Worth Symphony and the Urban Bush Women under conductor Robert Spano; Songs for Murdered Sisters gets its U.S. orchestral premiere next January by the Philadelphia Orchestra, first in Marian Anderson Hall, then in Carnegie Hall. Heggie began his opera career in the public relations office of the San Francisco Opera; clearly he has come a very long way.