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ANNOUNCING THE Recipients of Thea Musgrave Performer-Composer Collaboration Grant 2026

October 16, 2026

The second annual recipients of the Thea Musgrave Performer-Composer Collaboration Grant have been announced by New Music USA. Composer Stephanie Ann Boyd, multidisciplinary artist and inventor Geoff Robertson, and violinist Audrey Wright will be awarded $10,000 for their collaborative project PRISMBODY, which premiered at the MET on September 12 as part of the Musical Bodies exhibition.

PRISMBODY explores how music can engage audiences across varied sensory experiences. As part of the work, Wright will wear Robertson’s creation “The Garment,” a wearable instrument that transforms the solo violin into a multisensory experience, while Boyd composes through her synesthetic lens.

“I am deeply grateful to Thea Musgrave and Peter Mark for their generous support through this grant. This award has made it possible for the three of us to spend the heart of this summer together in person, diving deep into the sounds, themes, and technology at the core of PRISMBODY. This project will be the most collaborative work I have ever made, and to have Thea and Peter’s belief in that vision, giving us the space to truly dream together, is a rare joy and an experience I will always cherish,” Boyd said, per an official press release.

Read more at OperaWire.

Thea Musgrave to Be Honored at ACO’s October 27 Gala

October 09, 2026

As we approach Thea Musgrave's Centennial in 2028, we are delighted to share that the American Composers Orchestra will be honoring her as their Artistic Honoree at their Gala and Creative Catalyst Awards at Carnegie Hall on October 27, 2026. 

ACO honors Thea as a ground breaking composer who has mentored many young composers and displayed her artistry in orchestral, chamber and operatic forms. To celebrate Thea's Centennial, ACO has begun a partnership with us to bring her orchestral works to symphonies across the country in connection with EarShot, the nation's first systematic program for creating relationships between composers and orchestras. Through our collaboration, Thea's musical legacy continues to be showcased as a beacon that inspires  and advances the next generation of orchestral music.

Please join us in celebrating Thea by attending the gala, placing a digital celebratory ad at the event, or making a contribution if you can't join us in person. Ticket and sponsorship information are available by clicking the button below. 

GALA TICKETS AND ACO DONATIONS

We encourage you to support the excellent American Composers Orchestra, which is dedicated to providing growth experiences for today's most promising composers by enabling them to have their compositions heard and developed by the ACO as well as other orchestras across the country and around the world. To learn more about their work, visit www.americancomposers.org, and check out this 5-minute video to see EarShot in action.

Even if you are unable to raise a glass with us in person, we encourage you to support this wonderful institution, which is so important to the future of quality orchestral music in America.

Questions about attendance, sponsorships, or contributions can be directed to Syleste Alexander at syleste@americancomposers.org.

Mary, Queen of Scots lands in San Francisco to rave reviews

Following a delayed opening due to performer strikes, Mary, Queen of Scots took the San Francisco Opera stage by storm last week with the American premiere of a new co-production of the iconic 1977 work with the English National Opera. Here are some of the highlights from the press reaction.

Musgrave gave us the right balance of wincing and lyric, haunting and diabolic, lullaby and momentous. Cafiero made sure the story was the music as well as the action. Indeed, that was the opera’s key strength – the thorough integration of music, story, and emotion. There was no discussion here of “I didn’t like the music but the story was stirring,” or vice-versa. One remained the other just as in Mary’s now famous statement, “In the end is my beginning, in the beginning is my end.” This was the vital essence of both Mary’s story and Musgrave’s work.
- Lois Silversteen, OperaWire, October 12, 2026

Musgrave’s virtuoso compositional technique convincingly drives all of this drama, contrasting Renaissance melodies in the voices and band onstage with modern and dissonant music in the pit. The harp swirls. Elsewhere, the English horns slither around the vocal lines and the orchestra trills ominously in tense moments. The percussion section, which occasionally improvises, echoes the dramatic action.
Musgrave’s vocal lines — sometimes spiky, sometimes breathtakingly lyrical — set the libretto idiomatically.
- Lisa Hirsch, San Francisco Voice, October 2, 2026

Thea Musgrave’s score is of great musical craft, artfully interweaving Scottish tunes with the highly colorful musical support of the text, both tonal and atonal. The Shakespeare-like text, when not based on Scottish songs, is declaimed in obliquely formed vocal lines, with striking orchestral punctuation.
- Michael Milensky, Opera Today, October 2026