National Opera Association board meeting in Houston

I'm proud to be on the board of the National Opera Association, which serves opera at colleges, universities, and small opera companies. We recently had a board meeting in Houston, which is the location for the January 2023 conference. Since the most active members are usually the directors of university opera programs, I'm able to provide a bit of a perspective from other parts of the opera ecosystem such as professional companies and composers. I particularly would encourage composers to think about writing operas that can be performed by small and medium sized college programs. (The largest universities and conservatories can often do what professional opera companies can do.) NOA has a vocal competition, a scenes program competition, a bi-annual new one act opera competition, and an important new composer fellowship supported by the estate of Dominick Argento.