LIBRETTIST
Caitlin Vincent is an award-winning librettist and lyricist whose writing has been praised as ‘nuanced and honest’ (DC Theatre Scene), ‘intriguing’ (The Baltimore Sun), and ‘luminous’ (The Huffington Post).
In November 2013, Vincent’s opera Uncle Alex, with composer Joshua Bornfield, was premiered by Washington National Opera as part of a trio of new works for the American Opera Initiative. Set against the framework of Ellis Island at the turn of the 20th century, the work was hailed as “an outstanding marriage between music and words” (Scene4 Magazine).
Vincent’s subsequent commission from Washington National Opera, Better Gods, with composer Luna Pearl Woolf, premiered in January 2016 at the Kennedy Center. With sold-out performances, the work was acclaimed as “fascinating and heart-wrenching” (DC Metro Theatre Arts), told “with brutal honesty through Caitlin Vincent’s stirring libretto” (Broadway World).
In August 2017, Vincent and composer Douglas Buchanan won the 2017-19 Sackler Music Composition Prize to commission a new one-hour opera about Bessie Coleman, the first African-American female aviator, and Miriam “Ma” Ferguson, the first female governor of Texas. Bessie and Ma premiered at the University of Connecticut in March 2019 and was selected as a finalist for the Dominic Argento Chamber Opera Competition in 2023.
In 2022, Vincent and composer Timothy C. Takach won the Domenic J. Pellicciotti Opera Composition Prize for their opera, Computing Venus, based on the life of astronomer Maria Mitchell, which will be premiered by the Crane School of Music in Fall 2024.
Other operatic works include The Blood Vote (2023) with composer Jenny Game for the Melbourne Fringe Festival; Tienda (2019) with composer Reinaldo Moya for the Schubert Club of Minnesota; Nullipara (2018) with composer D. J. Sparr for the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble; Prix Fixe (2015) with composer Kevin Wilt for Florida Atlantic University; and Camelot Requiem (2013) with composer Joshua Bornfield for the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Vincent has also written two highly-acclaimed comic adaptations of Mozart operas: The Figaro Project, based on Le Nozze di Figaro (The Figaro Project, 2009; The Zeiders American Dream Theatre, 2015), and Who Killed Don Giovanni?, based on Don Giovanni (The Figaro Project, 2011; Cowtown Opera, 2019).
Also noted for her work in song repertoire, Vincent has had works premiered at the Oxford Lieder Festival, Wigmore Hall, and Carnegie Hall. Recent song commissions include Sentiment (2017), Godiva (2019), and Ahab (2020) with composer Juliana Hall; Little Black Book (2019) with composer Susan LaBarr; Modern Muse (2017) with composer Kevin Wilt; and Honeyed Voices (2023) with composer Lisa Neher. In 2022, Vincent and composer Lori Laitman were commissioned to write Thanks a Latte for soprano Laura Strickling’s 40@40 project. The song was subsequently featured on Strickling’s 40@40 album with pianist Daniel Schlosberg, which was nominated for a GRAMMY Award in 2023.
A classically-trained ballet dancer and former professional opera singer, Vincent was the Artistic Director of The Figaro Project (opera company) in Baltimore, Maryland from 2009 to 2015.