Nilou is a recipient of New Music USA Creator Fund Grant!

In support of DEBUT ALBUM Dawn of a Cold Season, Rooted in Iranian feminist poetry and created at the intersection of Persian vocal traditions and contemporary electroacoustic composition, the album explores mortality, resilience, and transformation.

READ MORE HERE

The Silver Cypress wins Opera America Commissioning Grant

Opera Grants for Women Composers: Commissioning Grants support Professional Company Members in commissioning new operatic works by women composers.

Commissioning Grants are intended to help offset the composer’s contract fee relating to the commission of a fully produced new work.

OPERA America believes that different perspectives, cultural histories, life experiences, and personal stories enrich the operatic repertoire. OPERA America is dedicated to supporting creators who reflect the diversity of the nation.

Opera Grants for Women Composers are supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. READ MORE HERE

Nilou featured on Winnipeg classic 107!

The Silver Cypress ahead of its first workshop at the Banff Center

The Silver Cypress is the creation of Iranian-American composer Niloufar Nourbakhsh, who won the commission from the prestigious Beth Morrison Projects that is being workshopped by opera artists at the Banff Centre. With previous commissions from ensembles like the Kronos Quartet and L’Orchestre de Paris among others, Nourbakhsh has typically relied on her lived experience to create a musical language all her own. In The Silver Cypress, this language creates a dystopian world where water (and the nourishment of life) is scarce and a community resembling climate refugees is suffering.

“We wanted to explore a world where people have lost water, but also have lost the water within, which is their tears,” Nourbakhsh explains, “and connecting tears with the magic of empathy and also storytelling as a way to understand each other better and to be able to live with each other.”

Read More HERE