New York City Opera’s VOX Contemporary American Opera Lab, a free annual festival that showcases new American opera, will be featured this Sunday, July 25 at 2pm in an exclusive webcast on Cued Up on Q2 on Classical 105.9 WQXR’s twenty four-hour contemporary classical music stream, Q2.

The program, hosted by WQXR’s Nadia Sirota, will feature live recordings of some of the ten diverse and boundary-pushing operas, including Brian Current’s Inventory, Missy Mazzoli’s Song from the Uproar, Paola Prestini’s Oceanic Verses, David T. Little’s Dog Days, and Michael Gordon’s Acquanetta, that were given a platform at VOX 2010 earlier this year on April 30 and May 1, 2010.  [only 5 are part of the program hosted by Nadia Sirota (the others are online). I’ve changed the names to reflect that]

In addition to the webcast, Q2 is also offering high-quality streaming audio of each opera for a limited time, from composers Du Yun, Daniel Crozier, Scott Davenport Richards, Anthony Perkins and Dafnis Prieto, and Julian Wachner, online at www.wqxr.org/q2/

New York City Opera’s VOX Contemporary American Opera Lab offers both emerging and established composers and librettists the opportunity to hear their previously unproduced works performed by New York City Opera’s orchestra and professional artists. For over half a century, New York City Opera has been a leader in the development of American opera, with an unmatched repertory of 95 American works by more than 58 American composers. City Opera has also played a major role in shaping an American aesthetic for opera through the world premieres of 29 American operas. At the core of New York City Opera’s commitment to American opera, to date VOX has presented excerpts from more than 100 new operas, with over 40 of those going on to full productions — four at City Opera and the remainder at companies including Houston Grand Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Washington National Opera, Michigan Opera Theater and Santa Fe Opera, placing VOX at the core of New York City Opera’s commitment to American opera.

Check out their pop-out music player at http://www.wqxr.org/popup_player/#station=q2