Rachel J. Peters

Composer/librettist Rachel J. Peters writes all manner of works for the stage. Her operas include Rootabaga Country (Sarasota Opera), Companionship (Fort Worth Opera), The Wild Beast of the Bungalow with Royce Vavrek (Oberlin Conservatory), Steve (Boston Opera Collaborative), No Ladies in the Lady’s Book with Lisa DeSpain (Utah Opera), and upcoming premieres with Opera Kansas and Opera Steamboat. Rachel’s musicals include Only Children with Michael R. Jackson (NYU Tisch Mainstage, Lincoln Center Directors Lab), Tiny Feats of Cowardice with Susan Bernfield (NYC Fringe Festival), Write Left with John Walch (Playwrights Horizons Theatre School), Tomato Red (UC Irvine), and Octopus Heart (NYU Steinhardt). Scores for plays include the critically acclaimed Stretch (a fantasia) (New Georges) and Tania in the Getaway Van (Flea Theater) by Susan Bernfield, Transatlantic by John Walch (Arkansas Rep), The Bacchae (Asolo Rep Conservatory), and several works by Stan Richardson. Her concert mini-monodrama, Ethel Smyth Plays Golf in Limbo, written for Albatross Duo, was performed at Semperoper Dresden and continues to enjoy performances all over the US. Other concert works include If You Can Prove That I Should Set You Free (Albany Symphony’s Dogs of Desire), Jack’s Vocabulary (Hartt SPASM), I Live Here (Galapagos Art Space), Canon I (Two Sides Sounding), And Then (BayPath College), and Fronds: The Wisdom of Fanny Fern (Walt Whitman Project).  Her extensive catalogue of art songs and cabaret songs have been performed at Lincoln Center, Second Stage, The National Opera Center, Symphony Space, Ars Nova, Joe’s Pub, and cabarets and theatres nationwide. Rachel is a contributing composer/lyricist to the new generation of The AIDS Quilt Songbook. Residencies: Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Yaddo, Brush Creek Arts. Fellowships: New Dramatists Composer-Librettist Studio, American Opera Projects’ Composers and the Voice, John Duffy Institute for New Opera. She holds a double B.A. summa cum laude from Brandeis University and an MFA from New York University’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. racheljpeters.com.