Beth Morrison Projects has announced that Niloufar Nourbakhsh is the winner of the BMP: Next Gen competition.

During the final round of the competition, Nourkbakhsh presented “Threshold of Brightness.” Written by Lisa Flanagan and directed by Shadi Ghaheri, the work follows controversial Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad “as she is seriously injured in a car crash and enters a dream-like state where she reckons with the ghosts of her past.”

Nourbakhsh is a pianist and composer who was a 2019 recipient of Opera America’s Discovery Grant. Her compositions include the opera “We the Innumerable” as well as the song cycle “Darkness of the Womb” for soprano and vocoder.

“Niloufar Nourbakhsh has demonstrated extraordinary skill in musical and theatrical storytelling. We are thrilled to announce that BMP will be commissioning Niloufar for a full evening-length opera-theatre work that will be developed and produced by BMP over the coming seasons. We look forward to sharing her world premiere with all of you in the future,” said an official statement by the company’s founder Beth Morrison and Executive Director Jecca Barry.