Are you ready for an opera about macaroni and cheese? Will we recognize ourselves in an opera about a cooking contest with contestants representing America and the different versions of macaroni and cheese that can be found all over the country? Listen to the conversation with conductor, Josh Slater, and General Manager of the New Orleans Opera, about the opera, The Cook-Off. It is performed at the Southern Food & Beverage Museum in New Orleans.

Joshua Anand Slater is an Indian-American conductor and composer, known equally for his work in new music and for “rich, full-throated” interpretations of established repertoire. Equally at home in the concert hall and the theater, his most recent opera credits in the 2024 season include the Toronto Premiere of the Pulitzer Prize winning Angel’s Bone and jumping in to lead the piano vocal workshop for Des Moines Metro Opera’s world premiere of American Apollo.

Librettist Lila Palmer is deeply committed to expanding the perspective of stories on operatic stages. Her advocacy for arts across the public sphere has led to ground-breaking collaborations with active-duty female military personnel (Dead Equal), healthcare professionals and patients (The Jewel Merchants), and several heritage spaces, including The Museum of London, The London Transport Museum, and Trebah Gardens. Her operatic work has recently been recognized with an Edinburgh Fringe Lustrum Award, and she was honored to be named an Aix-en-Provence Festival Women in Opera Professional Artist. In art song repertoire, This Be Her Verse, her song cycle with Kathleen Tagg for soprano Golda Schultz, earned critical acclaim for international premieres in Canada, Scotland, Switzerland, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Hailed by Opera News as “a new repertoire staple,” the work’s Alpha Classics album was named one of The Times 10 Best Classical Records of 2022.