Previous Ecker Fellows
2022–2023
Julia Adolphe
Julia Adolphe is a composer whose music is hailed as “alive with invention” (The New Yorker), “colorful, mercurial, deftly orchestrated” (The New York Times), displaying “a remarkable gift for sustaining a compelling musical narrative” (Musical America).
Her works are performed across the U.S. and abroad by renowned orchestras and ensembles such as the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, LA Chamber Orchestra, Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Verona Quartet, soprano Hila Plitmann, and pianist Gloria Cheng, among others. Current projects include a chorus and orchestra piece for the Cincinnati Symphony, a string trio for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and a comic opera for all ages entitled A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears, based on the novel by Jules Feiffer with libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann. Awards include a 2017 ASCAP Young Composer Award, a 2016 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, a 2016 OPERA America Discovery Grant, and a 2015 Charles Ives Scholarship from the Academy of Arts and Letters. Adolphe is a native New Yorker living in Nashville.
Raja Feather Kelly
Raja Feather Kelly is a choreographer and director, and the Artistic Director of the dance-theatre-media company the feath3r theory–for which Kelly has created 16 premieres, most recently WEDNESDAY. He is also an Off-Broadway choreographer whose collaborators include Lileana Blain-Cruz, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Sarah Benson, and Michael R. Jackson. Recent works include We’re Gonna Die, Macbeth In Stride, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning productions Fairview and A Strange Loop (which also won two Tony Awards including Best Musical).
Current projects include On Sugarland, SUFFS, and Lempicka (forthcoming). His accolades include three Princess Grace Awards, an Obie Award, an Outer Critics Circle honor, a Creative Capital award, and many others.
David Cote
David Cote is a playwright, opera librettist, and theater critic based in New York City. His operas include Blind Injustice (Cincinnati Opera); Three Way (Nashville Opera and BAM); The Scarlet Ibis (Prototype Festival and Chicago Opera Theater); and 600 Square Feet (Cleveland Opera Theater). His plays include The Müch, Saint Joe, and Otherland (National Playwrights Conference finalist).
David also wrote the text for Nkeiru Okoye’s Black Lives Matter monodrama for baritone and orchestra, Invitation to a Die-In. Recordings include Blind Injustice (NAXOS), Three Way (American Modern Recordings) and In Real Life (AMR). David’s TV and theater reviews appear in The A.V. Club, Observer, 4 Columns, and American Theatre. He was the longest serving theater editor and chief drama critic of Time Out New York. He’s also the author of popular companion books about the Broadway hits Moulin Rouge! The Musical, Spring Awakening, Jersey Boys, and Wicked.