Composer Ricky Ian Gordon focuses on opera and other vocal genres, including musical theater. He had an early breakthrough with a set of ten songs on poems by Langston Hughes. Since the early 2000s, much of Gordon's energy has been devoted works in larger forms, which have been both successful and diverse in subject and musical style. His 2007 opera The Grapes of Wrath marked a major advance in his career. Gordon has been in demand as a visiting professor at such institutions as Yale University and the Juilliard School. His opera Ellen West (2019) was recorded, with Gordon as producer. He has issued an album of his own songs, Bric-a-Brac: Ricky Ian Gordon Sings Ricky Ian Gordon. Gordon's opera The Garden of the Finzi-Continis had its premiere in New York in early 2022.