Beth Morrison Projects Names Finalists for BMP: NEXTGEN 2024
By David SalazarBeth Morrison Projects (BMP) has announced Harriet Steinke and Anuj Bhutani as the finalists for the third edition of BMP: NEXTGEN, the company’s composer competition for contemporary vocal works.
The announcement follows a semifinal round held on Nov. 23-24, 2024, at National Sawdust in New York City, where 10 semifinalists presented their compositions during live performances.
The finalists were chosen by a distinguished panel of industry professionals, including Beth Morrison, Christopher Koelsch (LA Opera), Peggy Monastra (Schirmer), composer Huang Ruo, and composer Paola Prestini. Steinke and Bhutani will advance to the finals, set for the 2025-26 season.
“We had ten incredible semi-finalists at BMP: NEXTGEN 3, and choosing the two finalists was an incredibly difficult task,” said BMP President and Creative Producer Beth Morrison per an official press release. “Harriet and Anuj have wildly different compositional styles and aesthetics, but both share a special gift for taking the personal and making it universal in a way that is profoundly theatrical. I’m beyond excited to see what they both create with their first BMP commissions.”
Steinke and Bhutani will be tasked with taking on a BMP commission for a 30-minute chamber opera or vocal-theater work, to be created under the mentorship of composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek. Their works will be presented in a semi-staged concert during the 2025-26 season, after which one composer will be awarded a commission for an evening-length piece, to be developed and premiered by BMP.
Past BMP: NEXTGEN winners include Emma O’Halloran, whose double-bill “TRADE | MARY MOTORHEAD” debuted at the PROTOTYPE Festival 2023 to critical acclaim and has since toured with LA Opera and Irish National Opera; and Niloufar Nourbakhsh, who is now developing a full-length work with librettist Anahita Ghazvinizadeh for an upcoming BMP season.
Harriet Steinke, a Detroit-based composer, has earned acclaim for her dynamic works commissioned by orchestras, chamber ensembles, and soloists nationwide. She is a recipient of a 2023 Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has premiered such works as “The Slow Movement” with the Albany Symphony and “Hymnal,” a 50-minute song cycle featuring vocalist Molly Yuko McGuire. Her works have been performed by the Toledo Symphony and Civic Orchestra of New Haven.
Anuj Bhutani is a composer, performer, and producer whose music blends visceral grooves, ethereal spaces, acoustic-electronic fusion, and narrative depth. His interdisciplinary projects span theater, dance, and film, creating immersive, multifaceted experiences and he has received the Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning Grant and an ASCAP Morton Gould Award. 
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