By ANTHONY TOMMASINI [NY Times, 7 May 2010]
In 1999, when Paul Kellogg, then the general and artistic director of New York City Opera, inaugurated the VOX project, a laboratory for new American operas, he asked George Steel, the executive director of the Miller Theater, to host the workshops there. The idea was to present sizable excerpts from new and recent operas, and in some cases works in progress, in concert performances. Mr. Steel, who had made the Miller Theater a hotbed of contemporary music, embraced the project. VOX was so successful that it moved to larger spaces for its later annual workshops.