Missy Mazzoli (b. 1980) was recently deemed one of "the most consistently inventive and surprising composers now working in New York." (New York Times) Her music has been heard all over the world in performances by the Kronos Quartet, the Minnesota Orchestra, eighth blackbird, the South Carolina Philharmonic, the Spokane Symphony, the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, NOW Ensemble, the Da Capo Chamber Players and many others. She's recently been commissioned by Kronos Quartet, eighth blackbird, the Whitney Museum and Carnegie Hall. Her work was recently performed as part of the Bang-on-a-Can New Music Marathon and the 2007 Cabrillo Festival of New Music. In 2006 Missy was a featured composer at Merkin Hall in New York City and at the Gaudeamus New Music Festival in Amsterdam. She is a recipient of a Fulbright Grant to the Netherlands, the 2007, 2008 and 2009 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award, a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and grants from the American Music Center and the Jerome Foundation. In 2006 she taught beginning composition at Yale University, and is now Executive Director of the MATA Festival of New Music in New York City, an organization founded by Philip Glass dedicated to commissioning and promoting new works by young composers. Missy is also an active pianist, and often performs with Victoire, an "all-star, all-female quintet" (Time Out New York) she founded in 2008 dedicated exclusively to her own compositions.
Recent projects included the premiere of Harp and Altar, a work for electronics and string quartet commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, the premiere of Still Life With Avalanche, commissioned and performed by eighth blackbird, the premiere of The Sound of the Light, a new work commissioned by Carnegie Hall and two performances of These Worlds In Us by the Minnesota Orchestra. Upcoming performances include the premiere of new works commissioned by the Whitney Museum of Art, the Santa Fe New Music Ensemble and the League of Composers Orchestra. Missy also recently received a Jerome Foundation Grant to support the creation of Song from the Uproar, a large-scale multimedia work featuring NOW Ensemble and filmmaker Stephen Taylor that premiered in New York City in May, 2009.
