NEW YORK: American Lyric Theater (ALT) has announced the expansion of their flagship  Composer Librettist Development Program (CLDP), adopting a strategic framework to address racial justice in the opera field. ALT has launched the Opera Writers Diversity and Representation Initiative to codify their commitment to equity and access, and to increase participation of artists of color.

“It is essential that we provide a platform for BIPOC artists to create new works and help them tell stories that are meaningful to them,” composer Jorge Sosa, a CLDP alum, 2021 CLDP guest lecturer, and diversity and representation initiative advisory member, said in a statement. “The CLDP provides not only training, but a meeting place for artists that share the same goals.”

ALT will offer this year’s CLDP through a combination of virtual workshops and four in-person residency periods in New York City, for which ALT will provide travel and housing. To further address issues of racial equity and access, ALT will provide $20,000 stipends to each artist accepted into the program to assist with expenses during the 2021-22 season. Additionally, ALT will commission all artists who complete the first year of the CLDP core curriculum to write an opera under the auspices of the program, with increased commission fees paid to each artist as their works are developed in partnerships between ALT and other opera companies across the company.

Applications for the 2021-22 CLDP will be accepted through April 30. Three composers and three librettists will be accepted to the program, which will begin in September.

For interested applicants, ALT is offering free registration for their CLDP Opera Writers Symposium through April 24. Symposium seminar topics will include technology in opera and a celebration of BIPOC opera composers and librettists.

American Lyric Theater was founded in 2005 to build a new body of operatic repertoire for new audiences by nurturing composers and librettists, developing sustainable artistic collaborations, and contributing new works to the national canon.