Celebrate the 100th birthday of Carlisle Floyd, one of America’s most influential opera composers, with a landmark Centennial Concert at Carnegie Hall on June 20, 2026. This unforgettable evening features world-renowned artists, orchestral musicians, and the choirs of the University of Houston and Florida State University, performing beloved favorites like “Ain’t It A Pretty Night” alongside rarely heard works and selections from Willie Stark and Cold Sassy Tree.  

CHRISTOPHER JAMES RAY, CONDUCTOR

American conductor Christopher James Ray has been praised by Opera News for his “clarity and sensitivity” and by the Boston Music Intelligencer for his “excellent conducting.” In the 2025–26 season, he makes a major operatic debut at Des Moines Metro Opera conducting Carlisle Floyd’s Of Mice and Men, one of several high-profile projects tied to the Carlisle Floyd Centennial. The season also brings Ray’s Carnegie Hall debut, as well as appearances with the Vermont Symphony and Meridian Symphony Orchestras, and recital performances around the country.

A strong advocate for American opera and 20th-century repertoire, Ray was a longtime assistant to Floyd and is recognized as a leading interpreter of his music. He appears with mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer on C. Floyd: Letter to the World, a recording of the composer’s songs on GPR Records.

Ray has held positions with the Bayreuth Festival, where he worked on productions including Götterdämmerung, Tristan und Isolde, and Parsifal, and at Opera San José, where he served three seasons as resident conductor, leading performances of Hansel and Gretel, Carmen, West Side Story, and more. He also served as an assistant conductor at the San Francisco Symphony, where he made his conducting debut on their acclaimed Soundbox series and worked with conductors Esa-Pekka Salonen, Michael Tilson-Thomas, Philippe Jordan, and Gustavo Dudamel among others.

Ray’s work in filmed opera includes Jake Heggie’s Three Decembers for Opera San José—later simulcast by Houston Grand Opera and Fort Worth Opera—and a subsequent performance with Berkshire Opera Festival, where Seen and Heard International wrote, “Christopher James Ray made Heggie's score pop with energy and throb with emotion.” Additional recent filmed productions include Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Tom Cipullo’s The Husbands.

A native of Mississippi, Ray made his professional debut with Mississippi Opera and is now a resident of New Orleans, LA.

GABRIELLA REYES, SOPRANO

With a voice described as “radiant” by the New York Times and chosen as one of the Sphinx Organization’s 2025 Medal of Excellence honourees, Nicaraguan-American soprano Gabriella Reyes is one of the most exciting and dynamic artists in music today. A former member of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera, Gabriella returns to the Met in the 25/26 season to make a role debut as Catrina in a new production of El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego with Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the podium. Gabriella will also make house and role debuts at the Los Angeles Opera as Maria in Francesca Zambello’s production of West Side Story with conductor James Conlon, and at Opera North as Contessa in a new production of Le nozze di Figaro. She also makes a return to the Lyric Opera of Chicago to reprise the role of Nedda in Pagliacci.

In the 24/25 season, Gabriella returned to the Metropolitan Opera to perform the roles of Margarita Xirgu in a new production of Osvaldo Golijov’s first opera Ainadamar, and both Mimì and Musetta in Franco Zeffirelli’s classic production of La bohème. She also returned to the Lyric Opera of Chicago as Musetta and made her role debut as Violetta in La traviata with Palm Beach Opera. Last season, Gabriella also made her eagerly awaited recital debut at Carnegie Hall with pianist Andrés Sarre for the series “Nuestros sonidos: Celebrating Latin Culture in the US” before appearing in concert with the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center for Golijov’s Three Songs for Soprano and Orchestra and Britten’s Les Illuminations with Karen Kamensek.

The 23/24 season saw Gabriella return to the Metropolitan Opera to perform the roles of Rosalba in a new production of Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas with Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and Liù in Turandot. She also made her role debut as Nedda in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City and revisited the role of Mimì in La bohème with the Atlanta Opera. Concert highlights included Musetta in La bohème with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Bravo Vail Festival, the world premiere of The Joyful Mysteries with the Houston Chamber Choir & Orchestra, and a return to the role of Marzelline in Fidelio with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, both in LA, and on tour in Europe with stops including at the Liceu in Barcelona, the Philharmonie de Paris, and to the Barbican in London.

Operatic highlights of previous seasons include Mimì in La bohème for Gabriella’s debuts at the Glyndebourne Festival and Washington National Opera, Nedda in Pagliacci for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, First Lady in The Magic Flute and Nella in Gianni Schicchi at the Metropolitan Opera, and Rosalba in Florencia en el Amazonas at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Further appearances in Europe include Gabriella’s recent debut at the Dresden Semperoper as Musetta and at the Paris Opera as soloist in the Seven Deaths of Maria Callas, a house she will return to in future seasons.

In concert, Ms. Reyes appears frequently with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel in roles including Marzelline in Fidelio, Bachianas Brasileiras, and excerpts from Die Zauberflöte, alongside appearances as a soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, New York Choral Society, and New Haven Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. She also appeared with the Jacksonville Symphony as Musetta in La bohème, the Montclair Orchestra and David Chan in Behzad Ranjbaran’s Songs of Eternity, and with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra in a program of Mozart.

Named a 2019 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist by the Metropolitan Opera, Gabriella was also a recipient of a Sara Tucker Study Grant from the Richard Tucker Foundation in 2018, and was also a grand finalist in the 2017 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. She is a graduate of the Boston Conservatory.

EDWARD NELSON, TENOR

Winner of the 2020 Glyndebourne Opera Cup, American baritone Edward Nelson is quickly establishing himself as one the most exciting singers of his generation. 

This season Mr. Nelson returns to the Metropolitan Opera as Tracy Bacon in the premiere of Mason Bate’s new opera, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. He also makes his debuts at the Houston Grand Opera in a new production of Kevin Put’s Silent Night, the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden as Dandini in La Cenerentola, the Teatro Colón de A Coruña as the title role in Pelleas et Melisande, and at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège as the title role in the world premiere of Benoît Mernier’s Bartelby.  

Mr. Nelson has recently made debuts at some of the world’s most important theaters. He starred in the title role of Philip Glass’ Orphée at Teatro Real Madrid and sang Dandini at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and Semperoper Dresden in Damiano Michieletto’s production of La Cenerentola. Last season he made his debut in Italy at Teatro Regio Torino as Marquis d’Hérigny in a new production of Auber’s Manon Lescaut. And in 2024, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in Terence Blanchard’s Champion, which won the 2024 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording.

An alumnus of both the Merola Opera Program and the Adler Fellowship at the San Francisco Opera, Mr. Nelson has made over 70 appearances on the stage of the War Memorial Opera House. In his final season as an Adler Fellow, he sang mainstage performances of Malatesta in Don Pasquale, Yamadori in Madama Butterfly, and roles in the world premiere of Dream of the Red Chamber. He has since returned as the Bosun in Billy Budd.

Mr. Nelson made his European debut in 2017 at the Norwegian National Opera as the title role in a new production of Pelléas et Mélisande and later returned to the company as Dandini in La Cenerentola and Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia. He has since sung Pelléas at Ópera de Oviedo, and Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville, and Oreste in Iphigénie en Tauride also in Seville. 

Other recent opera engagements include his debuts at the Boston Lyric Opera as Billy Bigelow in a new production of Carousel and at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis as Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus, Don Andrès in La Périchole  at theWashington National Opera , the Barber in Strauss’ Die schweigsame Frau at Bard Summerscape, his debut at Opera Philadelphia in Ne Quittez Pas: A Reimagined ‘La voix humaine,’ where he performed songs of Francis Poulenc alongside Patricia Racette; Il Barbierie di Siviglia at the Vancouver Opera, the title role in Don Giovanni at Palm Beach Opera, Maximillian in Candide at the Washington National Opera, the Count in Le nozze di Figaro at the Detroit Opera, the title role in Hamlet at West Edge Opera, Schaunard in La Bohème at Cincinnati Opera, and a staged performance of Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin at Chicago’s Harris Theater, in collaboration with Jessica Lang Dance.

Mr. Nelson made his Carnegie Hall debut with the American Symphony Orchestra in Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony and Kurt Weill’s Four Walt Whitman Songs. He also sang Sea Symphony with the Milwaukee Symphony, performed Carmina Burana with the Orquesta y Coro de la Comunidad de Madrid, appeared in a recital of Schubert lieder at the Four Arts Society in Palm Beach, and sang both Schaunard in La Bohème and Papageno in The Magic Flute with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra at Boston’s Symphony Hall.

Mr. Nelson is a decorated international vocal competitor. In addition to winning the 2020 Glyndebourne Cup, he was a finalist and encouragement award winner in Operalia 2021 at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. He was awarded Third Prize at the 2021 Ottavio Ziino Competition in Rome and is the recipient of grants from the Gerda Lissner Foundation and the Shoshana Foundation. He was a National Semi-Finalist in the 2013 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. 

A native of California, Mr. Nelson is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and received further training at the Tanglewood Music Center. 

REGINALD SMITH, JR., BARITONE

GRAMMY and Emmy Award-winning baritone Reginald Smith, Jr., the 2021 U.S. representative at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, has been lauded as a "passionate performer" (The New York Times) with a voice that is "electric, hall-filling" (The Baltimore Sun), "thrillingly dramatic" (Opera News) and "one of the most exciting baritone sounds to come along in years" (Opera News).

Smith’s 2025-2026 season includes house debuts at Seattle Opera, where he performs the Pirate King, a role debut in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance; at Minnesota Opera as Tonio in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci; and at the Oakland Symphony in his first performance of Verdi’s Requiem. He appears at the Houston Grand Opera to make his role debut as Peter in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel and performs the title role in Mendelssohn's Elijah with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra. He also returns to The Phoenix Symphony and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra for his now-celebrated holiday performances. 

Last season, Smith made several notable debuts, including his role and house debut at Washington National Opera in the title role in Porgy and Bess, his Sacramento Philharmonic debut as Alfio in Cavalleria Rusticana, and his Baltimore Symphony Orchestra debut as Amonasro in a staged version of Aida. In addition, he sang the role of Scarpia in Tosca with the New Orleans Opera and the New Mexico Philharmonic, performed as a soloist in concerts with the New Jersey Symphony led by Xian Zhang, The Phoenix Symphony and Chorus, the Memphis Symphony, and St. Croix Valley Opera. In addition, he appeared in recital with Houston Grand Opera’s Giving Voice and at the Fine Arts Center in Greenville, South Carolina.

In the 2023-24 season, Smith made his Santa Fe Opera debut in Tosca and returned to the Houston Grand Opera to take on the title role in Falstaff. He sang the role of Amonasro in Lyric Opera of Chicago's production of Aida immediately after jumping in for the company’s production of Terence Blanchard’s Champion – inspiring New City Stage to write, "Baritone Reginald Smith Jr., who was so magnificent as the older Emile in Champion, made a chilling Amonasro in what is often a throwaway role." In concert, he returned as the featured baritone soloist for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra's Christmas Pops performances.

During his operatic career, Smith has performed with leading companies worldwide. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2019 as Jim in Porgy and Bess, winning a 2021 GRAMMY® Award (Best Opera Recording) for the album made from that production. Other highlights include his 2022 debuts with Lyric Opera of Chicago as Uncle Paul in Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones; San Diego Opera as Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte; and Fort Worth Opera as Amonasro in Aida. In 2021, he debuted with Holy City Arts & Lyric Opera as Germont in La Traviata and gave a critically acclaimed performance as Castor in the world premiere of Gregory Spears’ Castor and Patience at Cincinnati Opera. Additional credits included his 2018 Portland Opera debut as Monterone in Rigoletto and his 2017 Dallas Opera debut as Bonzo in Madame Butterfly. 

In addition, Smith has also appeared with the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Opera Hong Kong, Atlanta Opera, New Orleans Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Toledo Opera, Opera Idaho, and Opera Carolina. His credits include roles in productions of I Pagliacci (Tonio), Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Don Bartolo), Porgy and Bess (Jake), Madama Butterfly (Sharpless), L'Italiana in Algeri (Taddeo), Fellow Travelers (Senator Charles Potter/General Airlie/Bartender), La Bohème (Marcello), Die Fledermaus (Falke), La Traviata (Giorgio Germont), The Pirates of Penzance (The Pirate King), Gounod's Roméo et Juliette (Capulet) and Le Nozze di Figaro (Count Almaviva). 

In concert, he has performed with the National Chorale at Lincoln Center as well as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Houston Symphony, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Cincinnati Pops, Lexington Philharmonic, Columbus Symphony Orchestra (GA), North Carolina Symphony, Johnson City Symphony, Boise Philharmonic, West Virginia Symphony, The Syracuse Orchestra and the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra at Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow. Additionally, he participated in a United in Song performance with the American Pops Orchestra, televised nationally on PBS, and debuted with the May Festival and the Oregon Symphony in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. Other highlights include Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, Mozart's Requiem and Coronation Mass, Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb, the Fauré and Duruflé Requiems, Schubert's Mass in G, Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte, Handel's Messiah, and Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette. Alongside the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Dallas-based WFAA-TV, he shared in a Lone Star Regional Emmy Award as the featured soloist in the DSO's 2018 Christmas Pops concert.

Smith is the 2021 U.S. representative at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, a Grand Finals winner of the 2015 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and a Houston Grand Opera Studio graduate. Besides receiving recognition from the Dallas Opera Guild Competition, the Mildred Miller International Vocal Competition, and the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation Vocal Competition, Smith has earned first place in the National Opera Association Competition: Scholarship Division, Orpheus Vocal Competition: Young Artist Division, George London Vocal Competition: Top Prize (George London Award) and Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition: Top Prize. He also received a 2015 Sara Tucker Study Grant and a 2016 Career Grant from the William Matheus Sullivan Foundation.

Born in Atlanta, Smith grew up a dedicated choral student from elementary school onward. His formative experiences as a music student inspired him to double major in Vocal Performance and Choral Music Education at the University of Kentucky, where he earned degrees in both. While he ultimately chose a performance career, he has channeled his love of teaching into numerous masterclasses, where he is known as a highly knowledgeable and engaging presenter. He returned to his alma mater during the 2017-2018 season for a performance of Mendelssohn's Elijah with the Lexington Singers and the University of Kentucky Chorale. He later returned to the University of Kentucky for a Master's in Vocal Performance, completing the degree in the Spring of 2021.

RYAN MCKINNY, BASS-BARITONE

Recognized by Opera News as “one of the finest singers of his generation,” American bass-baritone Ryan McKinny has earned his reputation as an artist with something to say. His relentless curiosity informs riveting character portrayals and beautifully crafted performances, reminding audiences of their shared humanity with characters on stage and screen.

This season, McKinny stars as Joseph De Rocher in the 25th-anniversary production of Heggie’s Dead Man Walking at San Francisco Opera, following a critically acclaimed turn at the Metropolitan Opera, where the Washington Post praised his “figurative and literal muscular force” and “richly human performance.” He also brings his commanding bass-baritone to several role debuts, appearing as John Proctor in a new Francesca Zambello production of The Crucible at Washington National Opera; as both Michele and Gianni Schicchi in Houston Grand Opera’s first full presentation of Il trittico; and as Lieutenant Horstmayer in the Houston premiere of Puts’ Silent Night, also at HGO, in a new staging by James Robinson. Elsewhere, McKinny joins Cincinnati Opera as Escamillo in Carmen, and Omaha Symphony and Opera Omaha for the title role in Bluebeard’s Castle, an interpretation hailed by the Boston Globe for “a rare blend of dramatic force and subtlety.”

McKinny has recently appeared as the title character in Don Giovanni (Washington National Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, Boston Symphony Orchestra), Escamillo in Carmen (Semperoper Dresden, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Staatsoper Hamburg, Houston Grand Opera), De Rocher in Dead Man Walking (Lyric Opera of Chicago), and Mozart’s Figaro (Washington National Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Seattle Opera, Metropolitan Opera). Other operatic triumphs include Amfortas in Parsifal (Bayreuth Festival, Argentina’s Teatro Cólon, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Dutch National Opera); Kurwenal in Tristan und Isolde (Deutsche Oper Berlin, Houston Grand Opera, Seattle Opera, Canadian Opera Company); the titular Dutchman in Der fliegende Holländer (Staatsoper Hamburg, Milwaukee Symphony, Glimmerglass Festival, Hawaii Opera Theater); Scarpia in Tosca (Los Angeles Opera); Adams’ Girls of the Golden West (Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Opera, Dutch National Opera); and Jochanaan in Salome (Houston Grand Opera, Santa Fe Opera). He also created the role of Mac in the world premiere of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s newest opera, Before It All Goes Dark, recently released on Warner Classics.

McKinny has appeared with major orchestras including Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, National Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, under the batons of conductors such as Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gustavo Dudamel, and Marin Alsop. In 2024, he was featured on commercial recordings with both the National Symphony and LA Philharmonic.

The first recipient of Operalia’s Birgit Nilsson Prize for singing Wagner, McKinny has also received the prestigious George London-Kirsten Flagstad Award, presented by the George London Foundation to a singer undertaking a significant Wagnerian career. McKinny represented the United States in the 2007 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, where he was a finalist in the Rosenblatt Recital Song Prize, and he was a Grand Finalist in the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, captured in the film The Audition.

JAKE HEGGIE, HOST

American composer Jake Heggie is best known for Dead Man Walking (2000), the most widely performed new opera of the last 25 years, with a libretto by Terrence McNally, and his critically acclaimed operas Moby-Dick (2010), Three Decembers (2008), Intelligence (2023), and It’s a Wonderful Life (2016), all with libretti by Gene Scheer. In addition to 10 full-length operas and numerous one-acts, Heggie has composed more than 300 art songs, as well as concerti, chamber music, choral, and orchestral works, seeking out projects that invite a wide range of perspectives and possibilities. His compositions have been performed on five continents, and he regularly collaborates with some of the world’s most beloved artists as both composer and pianist.

In the 25/26 season, Dead Man Walking celebrates its 25th anniversary with performances across the globe, including Leonard Foglia’s production at San Francisco Opera, which originally commissioned the work, and the Western Australian premiere of this acutely American story with Freeze Frame Opera at the former Fremantle Prison, a World Heritage Site. A student production at University of Colorado Boulder – especially meaningful in this celebratory year, as CU Boulder was the first university to produce the work in 2007 – will be followed by a new Annilese Miskimmon production at English National Opera, co-commissioned by Opera North and Finnish National Opera. Elsewhere this season, Heggie’s opera Intelligence receives a new production at Virginia Opera, as well as a world premiere album release through a new partnership between Houston Grand Opera and the LSO Live label. Heggie’s “Fire,” commissioned by violinist Joshua Bell for his concerto The Elements, travels to Houston Symphony, Naples Philharmonic, and Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, which serves as the work’s Canadian premiere. Additionally, new commissions appear with London Symphony Orchestra at Classical Pride London, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Madison Symphony Orchestra, and Los Angeles Philharmonic. This season also marks a new chapter in legacy-building, as Heggie joins the faculty of San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Diane B. Wilsey Distinguished Professor of Composition.

Often blurring the storytelling lines between art song and opera, Heggie consistently champions women in his work. In collaboration with Margaret Atwood, Songs for Murdered Sisters was created in response to the global epidemic of gender-based violence and premiered by baritone Joshua Hopkins. The album was nominated for Classical Album of the Year at the Juno Awards, and a subsequent project with Atwood, the song cycle Oh Children, was then commissioned by Merola Opera Program. Other recent commissions include Crossing Borders, with a libretto by Gene Scheer based on the journals of Nora Schapiro, which was commissioned by the George and Nora London Foundation, and the monodrama Earth 2.0, written with librettist Anita Amirrezvani and co-commissioned by Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Aspen Summer Music Festival, and Grand Rapids Symphony.

Heggie is particularly drawn to the mezzo voice and has longstanding creative partnerships with Frederica von Stade, Joyce DiDonato, Susan Graham, Sasha Cooke, and Jamie Barton, whose album with Heggie, Unexpected Shadows, earned a Grammy nomination for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. Heggie’s recent nine-city recital tour with Barton showcased What I Miss The Most, a song cycle with new texts by important voices including Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sister Helen Prejean, and Patti LuPone.

Heggie delights in uncovering hidden stories, and his artistic relationship with Music of Remembrance has brought lesser-known perspectives from the Holocaust, including those of queer people and political dissidents, to the stage in MOR-commissioned works like Before It All Goes Dark (2024), recently released on Warner Classics, Another Sunrise (2012) and For A Look or a Touch (2008), as well as in Intonations: Songs from the Violins of Hope (2020), commissioned by Music at Kohl Mansion. Other recent premieres include Overture (2023) for the New Century Chamber Orchestra, Lake Tahoe Symphonic Reflections (2022) for the Classical Tahoe Festival, and Fantasy Suite 1803 (2022) for violinist Daniel Hope and pianist Lise de la Salle, commissioned by Beethoven-Haus Bonn.

Several Heggie works have established themselves in the classical canon. Dead Man Walking, lauded by the Chicago Tribune as “the most celebrated American opera of the century,” has received more than 80 international productions since its San Francisco Opera premiere in October 2000. In addition to the highly acclaimed Metropolitan Opera premiere, Dead Man Walking has been received by enthusiastic audiences all over the United States and at major theaters in Dresden, Vienna, London, Madrid, Copenhagen, Sydney, Montréal, Calgary, Dublin, and Cape Town. Likewise, Three Decembers has received nearly 40 international productions, while Great Scott was recognized with a Grammy nomination for Best New Classical Composition. Moby-Dick was telecast in Great Performances’ 40th Season, subsequently released on DVD, and served as the subject of the book A Grand Opera for the 21st Century.

Hailed by the Wall Street Journal as “arguably the world’s most popular 21st-century opera and art song composer,” Heggie is a long-time mentor of young composers, singers, and pianists. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Eddie Medora King Prize from UT Austin’s Butler School of Music, and the Champion Award from the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. Heggie was the keynote speaker for the 2016 meeting of National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) and has given commencement addresses at SFCM, Eastman School of Music, Northwestern’s Bienen School of Music, and UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music. He is a frequent guest artist at universities and conservatories, including Eastman, Northwestern, Cornell, Boston University, Cincinnati Conservatory, Peabody Conservatory, The Royal Conservatory in Toronto, USC’s Thornton School, and Vanderbilt University. He has been a guest artist at SongFest for more than 20 years and is the proud recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. Named Musical America’s 2025 Composer of the Year, Heggie was also recently inducted into the OPERA America Hall of Fame, joining a cohort of artists, administrators, and advocates who have strengthened the art form and the field.

Heggie has served as an advisor and mentor for Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative, CU Boulder’s New Opera Workshop, and Chicago Opera Theater’s Vanguard Initiative. His own teachers have included Ernst Bacon, with whom he studied composition as a teenager, as well as pianist Johana Harris and composers Roger Bourland, Paul DesMarais, and David Raksin at UCLA. Prior to composing Dead Man Walking, he was mentored by his friend, the late Carlisle Floyd.

Heggie continues to write all his work by hand, believing that a visceral, physical connection to the score is an essential part of composition. Since 1993, he has made his home in San Francisco, where he lives with his husband, Curt Branom.

PROGRAM

Saturday, June 20, 2026 at 8:00 PM
CARNEGIE HALL

Carlisle Floyd Centennial Celebration 
Christopher James Ray, conductor
Jake Heggie, host
Gabriella Reyes, soprano
Edward Nelson, tenor
Reginald Smith, Jr., baritone
Ryan McKinny, bass-baritone

CARLISLE FLOYD In Celebration, Overture for Orchestra
CARLISLE FLOYD Pilgrimage 
CARLISLE FLOYD Ain’t It a Pretty Night from Susannah
CARLISLE FLOYD It Is Done: the war is over and we who are left endure from The Passion of Jonathan Wade
CARLISLE FLOYD We All Come Out of the Earth from Willie Stark
CARLISLE FLOYD Rucker’s Sermon from Cold Sassy Tree