Victoria Looseleaf
San Francisco Classical Voice
January 12, 2026
It’s no surprise that acclaimed composer Damien Geter has an affinity for the voice.
The bass-baritone’s career has included appearances at the Metropolitan Opera and in the premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winner Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road at Virginia Opera and the Oakland Symphony. Geter is also music director of Portland Opera.
As a composer, he’s premiered two operas in the last three years, five in total, and said in an interview, that he’s “Opera-ed out.” However, his recent work continues to make an impact.
Geter’s 2023 multimedia song cycle, Cotton, which was commissioned by Philadelphia’s Lyric Fest, will be performed Jan. 16 at The Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center in San Diego.
A co-production of La Jolla Music Society and San Diego Opera, Cotton is an immersive exploration of African American stories through song, poetry, and photography. It’s inspired by lensman John E. Dowell’s evocative images of South Carolina, which are seen in constant montage on enormous screens during the 50-minute work. Set to poetry by eight renowned writers responding to Dowell’s photos, the work will be sung by mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges and baritone Justin Austin, with pianist Laura Ward.
“You think about cotton, you think about slavery and how much economic growth happened because of that particular crop — and all of the trauma that goes along with it. But we also experience cotton every day, [as] most of our clothes are made of cotton,” Geter said. “Actually, the plant itself is a good description, because visually, it’s a very soft-looking, delicate thing. But if you touch it, it’s not that.”
While Geter said he took inspiration from Dowell’s photographs, his music was primarily created in response to the texts, which included poems by Nikki Giovanni, Charlotte Blake Alston, Afaa Michael Weaver, and Marc Bamuthi Joseph.
“Once I got all the poems, I started writing. Some of them were a bit too long, but I worked with the poets [who] told me I could do whatever I wanted, or we made some edits. But I knew,” he added, “that this was such an American story, [and] I wanted to capture the Americanness of it all.”
Just like many performers, Geter separates himself personally from the weight of the subject matter. “If I become too emotionally involved, it takes too long,” he said. “I have to be numb when I’m writing, [but] that’s not to say there are no emotions involved. Obviously, there are, because they come out in the music. It’s still cathartic, though.”
The composer, who is currently in residence with Richmond Symphony, explained that an iconic, American song is embedded in each part of the song cycle. Some of these are spirituals, like “Deep River” and “Take Me to the Water,” while others include elements of jazz. “From that point on, it was just figuring out what order things go in, because you have to [know] what the arc of the story is going to be.”
“Each song is different, but it’s all tonal,” Geter said. “People seem to think my music has a groove, so it probably is groovy.”
He wants to challenge the audience with the song cycle. “I’m not one who tries to attach feelings or supposed feelings. I want them to walk away with whatever they’re going to walk away with. In some regard, I don’t feel I’m responsible for the audiences’ emotions.
“But I think,” added Geter, “if they’re going to walk away with anything, [it would be] the realization that cotton is a crop that made this country very wealthy, so I would like to challenge people to think of what that narrative looks like and of this nation’s history in terms of race relations.”
