Name Missy Mazzoli | Role Composer | |
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Albums Song from the Uproar: the Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt, Vespers for a New Dark Age, Bach & Beyond, Part 1 Similar People Royce Vavrek, Judd Greenstein, Isabelle Eberhardt, Glenn Kotche, David T Little | ||
Composer portrait missy mazzoli
Missy Mazzoli (born October 27, 1980 in Lansdale, Pennsylvania) is an American composer and pianist living in Brooklyn, New York, who has received critical acclaim for her chamber, orchestral and operatic work. Her first chamber opera Song from the Uproar, based on the life of Swiss explorer Isabelle Eberhardt and featuring a libretto by Royce Vavrek, premiered at New York City venue The Kitchen in March 2012. It was performed again by LA Opera in October 2015. She is the founder and keyboardist for Victoire, an electro-acoustic band dedicated to performing her music. From 2012-2015 she was composer-in-residence at the Opera Company of Philadelphia, in collaboration with Gotham Chamber Opera and Music-Theater Group. Her music is published by G. Schirmer. Mazzoli received a 2015 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.
Contents
- Composer portrait missy mazzoli
- dsolive missy mazzoli s river rouge transfiguration
- Education
- Concert works and recordings
- Proving Up
- Breaking the Waves
- Song from the Uproar
- SALT
- Critical reception
- References
dsolive missy mazzoli s river rouge transfiguration
Education
Mazzoli's degrees are from the Yale School of Music, the Royal Conservatory of the Hague and Boston University. Her teachers include David Lang, Louis Andriessen, Aaron Jay Kernis, Martin Bresnick, Martijn Padding, and John Harbison.
In 2006 Mazzoli taught composition in the Music Department of Yale University, and from 2007 to 2010 was Executive Director of the MATA Festival in New York City, an organization dedicated to promoting the work of young composers.
In 2013, she joined the composition faculty at the Mannes College of Music.
Concert works and recordings
Mazzoli's music has been performed by the Kronos Quartet, eighth blackbird, the Minnesota Orchestra, violinist Jennifer Koh, cellist Maya Beiser, NOW Ensemble, the American Composers Orchestra, the South Carolina Philharmonic, Dublin's Crash Ensemble, ETHEL and many others in venues including Carnegie Hall and the Sydney Opera House. As of 2012 she is Composer-in-Residence with the Opera Company of Philadelphia, and in 2011/12 was Composer/Educator in residence with the Albany Symphony.
Mazzoli has released three full-length albums of her music to date: Cathedral City, written for her band Victoire (2010), Song from the Uproar, the original cast recording of her first opera (2012), and Vespers for a New Dark Age (2015), a work for her band Victoire in collaboration with percussionist Glenn Kotche (of Wilco) and vocalists Martha Cluver, Melissa Hughes and Virginia Kelsey. Vespers for a New Dark Age was commissioned by Carnegie Hall and premiered there in February 2014. All of Mazzoli's records were released on Brooklyn-based label New Amsterdam Records.
Proving Up
In 2018, Mazzoli will premiere her third opera with librettist Royce Vavrek, an adaptation of Karen Russell's short story of the same title. The work has been commissioned by Washington National Opera, Opera Omaha and Miller Theatre. The opera is being written for baritone John Moore and Grammy-nominated soprano Talise Trevigne.
Breaking the Waves
Mazzoli's opera Breaking the Waves, an adaptation of Lars von Trier's 1996 Cannes Grand Prix-winning film Breaking the Waves, with a libretto by Royce Vavrek, was commissioned by Opera Philadelphia and Beth Morrison Projects. The opera premiered in Philadelphia on September 22, 2016 garnering many positive reviews. Opera News wrote that "Breaking the Waves stands among the best 21st-century American operas yet produced." while Heidi Waleson, in her review for The Wall Street Journal wrote: "Mr. Vavrek's spare, eloquent libretto leaves ample space for Ms. Mazzoli's music to create a complex portrait of Bess and her stark environment. … Ms. Mazzoli's score deftly balances trenchant arias with a kaleidoscopic orchestration whose layers and colors suggest Messiaen, Britten and Janáček but is finally all her own." The opera was nominated for the 2017 International Opera Award for Best World Premiere, and won the inaugural Music Critics Association of North America Award for Best New Opera in 2017.
Song from the Uproar
Mazzoli's first opera, Song from the Uproar: The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt, based on the life of Swiss explorer and writer Isabelle Eberhardt, premiered at New York venue The Kitchen in March 2012. The piece was created in collaboration with librettist Royce Vavrek, filmmaker Stephen Taylor and director Gia Forakis. The Wall Street Journal called this work "powerful and new" and The New York Times claimed that "in the electric surge of Ms. Mazzoli's score you felt the joy, risk, and limitless potential of free spirits unbound."
On November 13, 2012 the original cast recording of Song from the Uproar was released on New Amsterdam Records. In October 2015 LA Opera presented the second full production as part of their "Off Grand" series at REDCAT.
SALT
A 20-minute retelling of the story of Lot's wife for voice, cello and electronics, SALT was performed at the 2012 BAM Next Wave Festival in Brooklyn and at UNC Chapel Hill. Composed for cellist Maya Beiser and vocalist Helga Davis, SALT was directed by Robert Woodruff and includes text by Erin Cressida Wilson.
Critical reception
Mazzoli was described by The New York Times as "one of the more consistently inventive and surprising composers now working in New York", and by Time Out New York as "Brooklyn's post-millennial Mozart". On November 23, 2012 and March 28, 2015, Mazzoli was a guest on NPR's All Things Considered.
Mazzoli is the recipient of four ASCAP Young Composer Awards, a Fulbright Grant to the Netherlands, the Detroit Symphony's Elaine Lebenbom Award, and grants from the Jerome Foundation, American Music Center, and the Barlow Endowment.
After the LA premiere of her first opera, Song from the Uproar, Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "Her wonderful score is seductive, meditative, spiritually elusive and subversive. With it, we can welcome a new natural for the art form."