his most popular orchestral work, Old and Lost Rivers, as well as two symphonies and other concerted works. In 1992, Picker was awarded the Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Music. Since 1993: Operas, directorship, and later career In 1993, Picker began composing his first opera, Emmeline, commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera, with a libretto by J.D. McClatchy; Emmeline premiered in 1996. In 1998, two years after the debut of Emmeline, Picker's second opera, Fantastic Mr. Fox premiered at the Los Angeles Opera. Fantastic Mr. Fox was recorded by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Odyssey Opera in 2019 and released on Albany Records; this album won the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording. A consortium of The Dallas Opera, San Diego Opera, and Opéra de Montréal commissioned Picker's third opera, Thérèse Raquin, which debuted in 2001. In 2005, The Metropolitan Opera debuted Picker's fourth opera, An American Tragedy, based on the novel by Theodore Dreiser; a revised version was premiered at The Glimmerglass Festival in 2014. In 2010, Picker composed a ballet, Awakenings, for the Rambert Dance Company, inspired by the work of Oliver Sacks. That same year, he co-founded Opera San Antonio, where he served as artistic director from 2010 to 2015. In 2012, Picker was elected to a lifetime membership of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Picker's fifth opera, Dolores Claiborne, based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, premiered at the San Francisco Opera in September 2013; soon after, in 2015, the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis mounted a new production of Emmeline, which garnered positive reviews. Picker was appointed artistic director of Tulsa Opera from 2016 to 2022. His tenure at Tulsa Opera would see the selection of Lucia Lucas as the first transgender opera singer to have a leading role on the American stage<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2019/05/30/727846231/they-know-that-i-m-the-real-deal-transgender-baritone-makes-opera-history|title=They Know That I'm The Real Deal': Transgender Baritone Makes Opera History|last=Shapiro|first=Ari|work=NPR|access-date=September 3, 2022}}</ref> (for which he is featured in James Kicklighter's documentary film, The Sound of Identity), a baseball-themed production of Rigoletto adapted for an open-air baseball stadium to accommodate the gathering restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, “Greenwood Overcomes,” a concert with new works by African-American composers to honor the memory of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, as well as a Thaddeus Strassberger-directed production of Salome. In 2022, Picker’s opera Awakenings, based on Awakenings, Oliver Sacks' 1960's chronicle of his efforts