In June, composer and songwriter Gillian Rae Perry (Music MFA 19) and librettist David Davila won The Atlanta Opera’s fifth annual 96-Hour Opera Project for their work, The Sickness. The pair received the $10,000 Antinori Foundation Grand Prize, the Audience Favorite Award, and a commission from The Atlanta Opera to develop and expand the work.
For the competition, Perry and Davila were tasked with writing an original 10-minute opera based on the Georgia Gold Rush of 1828 and its lasting consequences, including the Trail of Tears. Once they arrived at the festival, they had just 96 hours to rehearse and stage their work with singers and musicians.
Set on Cherokee land, The Sickness follows Eliana Banks as she wrestles with whether to sign away her family’s property, a choice that pulls her into the greed and divided loyalties driving the removal of Native Americans. The opera was presented live as part of The Atlanta Opera’s NOW Festival.
The win follows Perry’s participation in the 2025 competition, where Desert Bloom, created with librettist Mo Holmes, received the Audience Favorite Award. Perry has since received a 2026 Discovery Grant from OPERA America to support the development of the one-act chamber opera.
Set in the West Texas desert, Desert Bloom follows Mia, a grieving young woman drawn into the wilderness by a mysterious voice. Beneath a lone mulberry tree, she encounters Teo, the spirit of a vaquera who has spent a century beside the grave of Angel, a soldadera who fought in the Mexican Revolution. Their meeting leaves Mia questioning whether she is experiencing delirium or standing at the threshold of the afterlife.
Perry’s work often explores mental health, vulnerability, childhood, the subconscious, and dream worlds. Raised on a bird farm in rural Texas, she wrote her earliest compositions for the birds. She served as Chicago Opera Theater’s Vanguard Emerging Opera Composer from 2022 to 2024, and her work has been performed by the Chicago Philharmonic, Chicago Opera Theater, The Atlanta Opera, and members of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, among others.
