The Oregon Music Teachers Association (OMTA) has named Dr. Lisa Neher as the 2025 Composer of the Year.

Neher’s “Love in a Time of Climate Change,” which features text by poet Craig Santo Perez, will get a premiere this June at the 2025 OMTA conference. The performance, which takes place on June 28, 2025 at 1:30 p.m., will feature soprano Lindsey Rae Johnson and pianist Dianne Davies.

As a recipient of the honor, Neher gets a commission from the OMTA, but also represents Oregon in competition for teh national Distinguished Composer of the Year Award through the Music Teachers National Association.

“Lisa’s solid, heartfelt, and timely writing put her on the top of our lists,” said OMTA Composer-of-the-Year committee members, Paul Safar and Amy Fairchild per an official press release. “We are proud to have Lisa represent Oregon at the MTNA competition this year.”

Neher is a composer and mezzo-soprano who has performed with Portland Opera, Third Angle New Music, Really Spicy Opera, Portland Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Opera Theatre Oregon, New Music Gathering, Resonance Ensemble, Experiments in Opera, Renegade Opera, and Big Mouth Society. Her compositions have been commissioned and performed by the National Association of Teachers of Singing, Cincinnati Song Initiative, Third Angle New Music, FearNoMusic, Dinosaur Annex, New Opera West, Mirror Visions Ensemble, Alma Ensemble, Opera Elect, and Opera Santa Barbara, among others. She is also the creator of the One Voice Project Micro Opera Festival and the Founder of New Wave Opera.

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