Composers

MISSY MAZZOLI

Grammy-nominated composer Missy Mazzoli was recently deemed “one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York” (The New York Times) and “Brooklyn’s post-millennial Mozart” (Time Out New York), and has been praised for her “apocalyptic imagination” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker). Mazzoli is the Mead Composer-in-Residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and her music has been performed all over the world by the Kronos Quartet, eighth blackbird, pianist Emanuel Ax, Opera Philadelphia, Scottish Opera, LA Opera, Cincinnati Opera, New York City Opera, Chicago Fringe Opera, the Detroit Symphony, the LA Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, JACK Quartet, cellist Maya Beiser, violinist Jennifer Koh, pianist Kathleen Supové, Dublin’s Crash Ensemble, the Sydney Symphony and many others. In 2018 she made history when she became one of the two first women (along with composer Jeanine Tesori) to be commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera. That year she was also nominated for a Grammy in the category of “Best Classical Composition” for her work Vespers for Violin, recorded by violinist Olivia De Prato.

Mazzoli has received considerable acclaim for her operatic compositions. Her third opera, Proving Up, written with longtime collaborator Royce Vavrek, was commissioned by Washington National Opera, Opera Omaha and New York’s Miller Theatre.  Based on a short story by Karen Russell, Proving Up offers a surreal and disquieting commentary on the American dream through the story of a Nebraskan family homesteading in the late 19th century. Proving Up premiered to critical acclaim in January 2018 at Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center, in April 2018 at Opera Omaha, and in September 2018 at Miller Theatre. The Washington Post called it “harrowing…powerful…a true opera of our time”. Mazzoli’s second opera, Breaking the Waves, a collaboration with librettist Royce Vavrek commissioned by Opera Philadelphia and Beth Morrison Projects in 2016, was described as “among the best 21st-century operas yet” (Opera News), “savage, heartbreaking and thoroughly original” (Wall Street Journal), and “dark and daring” (New York Times). Earlier projects include the critically acclaimed sold-out premiere of Missy’s first opera, Song from the Uproar, in a Beth Morrison production at New York venue The Kitchen in March 2012. 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 sprits unbound.” Time Out New York named Song from the Uproar Number 3 on its list of the top ten classical music events of 2012. In October 2012, Missy’s operatic work, SALT, a re-telling of the story of Lot’s Wife written for cellist Maya Beiser and vocalist Helga Davis, premiered as part of the BAM Next Wave Festival and at UNC Chapel Hill, directed by Robert Woodruff. This work, including text by Erin Cressida-Wilson, was deemed “a dynamic amalgamation that unapologetically pushes boundaries” by Time Out New York.

Mazzoli is currently the Mead Composer-in-Residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. From 2012-2015 she was Composer-in-Residence with Opera Philadelphia, Gotham Chamber Opera and Music Theatre-Group, and in 2011/12 was Composer/Educator in residence with the Albany Symphony. Missy was a visiting professor of music at New York University in 2013, and later that year joined the composition faculty at the Mannes College of Music, a division of the New School.  From 2007-2011 she was Executive Director of the MATA Festival in New York, and in 2016, Along with composer Ellen Reid and in collaboration with the Kaufman Music Center, Missy founded Luna Composition Lab, a mentorship program and support network for female-identifying, non-binary and gender nonconforming composers ages 12-18.

Last season included performances of her second opera Breaking the Waves at the Edinburgh International Festival and the Adelaide Festival, a performance of her opera Proving Up  at the Aspen Music Festival, the world premiere of a Orpheus Alive, a new ballet score commissioned and premiered by the National Ballet of Canada, the US premiere of her double bass concert Dark with Excessive Bright with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and performances of her work by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Colorado Symphony and the Opera National Bordeaux, among others. Mazzoli also curated concerts with the San Francisco Symphony and the Chicago Symphony. Her next opera, The Listeners, commissioned by the Norwegian National Opera and Opera Philadelphia and created in collaboration with playwright Jordan Tannahill, librettist Royce Vavrek and director Lileana Blain-Cruz, will premiere in March, 2021 in Oslo. Next season will also feature the world premiere of Orpheus Undone, an orchestral work commissioned by the Chicago Symphony,

Mazzoli is an active TV and film composer, and recently wrote and performed music for the fictional character Thomas Pembridge on the Amazon TV show Mozart in the Jungle. She also contributed music to the documentaries Detropia and Book of Conrad and the film A Woman, A Part. Missy’s music has been recorded and released on labels including New Amsterdam, Cedille, Bedroom Community, 4AD and Innova.  Artists who have recorded Mazzoli’s music include eighth blackbird (whose Grammy-winning 2012 CD Meanwhile opened with Missy’s work Still Life with Avalanche), Roomful of Teeth, violinist Jennifer Koh, violist Nadia Sirota, NOW Ensemble, Newspeak, pianist Kathleen Supove, the Jasper Quartet, and violinist Joshua Bell, who recorded Missy’s work for the Mozart in the Jungle soundtrack.

Mazzoli is an active pianist and keyboardist, and often performs with Victoire, a band she founded in 2008 dedicated to her own compositions. Their debut full-length CD, Cathedral City, was named one of 2010′s best classical albums by Time Out New York, NPR, the New Yorker and the New York Times, and was followed by the critically acclaimed Vespers for a New Dark Age, a collaboration with percussionist Glenn Kotche. Vespers was released in March 2015 on New Amsterdam Records along with Missy’s own remixes of the work and a remix of her piece A Thousand Tongues by longtime collaborator Lorna Dune.  The New York Times called Vespers for a New Dark Age “ravishing and unsettling”, and the album was praised on NPR’s First Listen, All Things Considered and Pitchfork. In the past decade they have played in venues all over the world including Carnegie Hall, the M.A.D.E. Festival in Sweden, the C3 Festival in Berlin and Millennium Park in Chicago. Victoire returned to Carnegie Hall in March of 2015 as part of the “Meredith Monk and Friends” concert, performing Missy’s arrangements of Monk’s work.

Missy is the recipient of a 2019 Grammy nomination, the 2017 Music Critics Association of America Inaugural Award for Best Opera, the 2018 Godard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a 2015 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award, 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. She has been awarded fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Ucross, VCCA, the Blue Mountain Center and the Hermitage.

Missy attended the Yale School of Music, the Royal Conservatory of the Hague and Boston University.  She has studied with (in no particular order) David Lang, Louis Andriessen, Martin Bresnick, Aaron Jay Kernis, Martijn Padding, Richard Ayres, John Harbison, Charles Fussell, Martin Amlin, Marco Stroppa, Ladislav Kubik, Louis DeLise and Richard Cornell.

Her music is published by G. Schirmer.

JAMES DIAZ

Called “stark, haunting elegance” with “intimate focus” by The Washington Post, the music of Colombian-born composer/sound maker James Díaz strives to create unique sonic textures, sound masses, and interactive environments. Deeply influenced by the concept of psychedelia, his music also draws from elements of graphic design, Latin-America landscapes, and photography.

James is currently working on his studio album “[speaking in a foreign language]” with violinist Julia Suh, as well as on a new orchestra work to be premiered by the New York Philharmonic and Juilliard at the Lincoln Center in 2023.

Serving as the 2019 composer-in-residence for the Medellin Philharmonic, James premiered "RETRO," his concerto for orchestra and electronics. 

James has won multiple international and national awards, such as the 2015 National Prize of Music in Composition from the Colombian Ministry of Culture for "Saturn Lights", his concerto for percussion trio and orchestra. His orchestral piece "Frack[in]g" was awarded the 2018 Bogotá Philharmonic Prize in Composition. Similarly, James has been a fellow at the Orchestra of St. Luke’s DeGaetano Institute, the American Composers Orchestra's Underwood Readings, the Nashville Symphony Composers Lab, the Loretto Project, the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, and the International Winter Festival of Campos do Jordao.​

His music has been performed by orchestras such as the WDR Sinfonieorchester, Basel Sinfonietta, National Symphony of Colombia, American Composers Orchestra, Medellin Philharmonic, Xalapa Symphony Orchestra, Nashville Symphony, Bogotá Philharmonic, Orchestra of St. Luke's, and EAFIT Symphony, and by ensembles such as Longleash, Yarn/Wire, Sō Percussion, Unheard-of//ensemble, Efferus Quartet, Apply Triangle, Quartet121, Camará Ensamble, ZOFO, and National Sawdust Ensemble.

Similarly, as collaboration with filmmaker/producer Leticia Akel Escárate, his film music has been presented at the SIFF Seattle International Film Festival ShortsFest, Palm Springs International ShortFest, Madrid FCM-PNR Festival, Cinemaissí Festival (Finland), and the Huesca, Quito, Sao Paulo, and Santiago international festivals.

James is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in composition at the University of Pennsylvania as a Benjamin Franklin fellow.

Chris P. Thompson

I compose music and play percussion. The influence of a childhood in California’s Silicon Valley of the 80s and 90s, as well as in the New York City contemporary music scene of the ‘00s and ‘10s led me to develop work that draws equally from electronic music, marching percussion, and contemporary classical music.

I released my third solo album True Stories & Rational Numbers in October 2020. A nine-movement work sequenced as electronic music but also fully scored for four keyboardists, it represents my investigation of just intonation and the natural mathematics of rhythm and harmony, my search for a performance practice to incorporate these into live contemporary music, and my personal fan-fiction about Hermann and Anna von Helmholtz. True Stories will receive its world premiere live performance at the Barbican Centre, London in November 2021.

Early 2021 brought the release of Red Folder, a collaboration with playwright Rajiv Joseph for the Steppenwolf Theater’s STEPPENWOLF NOW series.

My first two records, the LP Everything Imaginable Comes True (2019) and EP Lot Hero (2017), draw heavily on the high-energy sound world of modern drum & bugle corps while incorporating luminaries of the New York City contemporary classical music scene in both familiar and unexpected capacities.

I’ve also been member of Alarm Will Sound for the past 15 years, which has given me the opportunity to work both as a performing percussionist and arranger on a wide variety of projects.

As a Percussionist:
Long-time member of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble, toured internationally as a performer with Tyondai Braxton’s HIVE, participated in the world premieres of over a hundred new works, and can be heard on 40 studio albums. Frequent performer in the pits of many NYC Broadway show productions including The Phantom of the Opera and Wicked.

Collaborations, Appearances, Recordings:
Björk, Dirty Projectors, James McVinnie, Medeski Martin & Wood, the Metropolitan Opera, Nico Muhly, Brian Reitzell, They Might Be Giants, and Valgeir Siggurðsson.

Education: UCLA ‘01, The Juilliard School ‘03. Student of Mitchell Peters and Daniel Druckman.
Interests: Click tracks, experimental animation, graph paper, libraries, math, Japan, your dog.

Deeper dive into my world at The Fifteen Questions.
Full Discography as a composer, performer, and arranger.

REENA ESMAIL

Indian-American composer Reena Esmail works between the worlds of Indian and Western classical music, and brings communities together through the creation of equitable musical spaces. 

Esmail’s life and music was profiled on Season 3 of PBS Great Performances series Now Hear This, as well as Frame of Mind, a podcast from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Esmail divides her attention evenly between orchestral, chamber and choral work. She has written commissions for ensembles including the Los Angeles Master Chorale,  Seattle Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Kronos Quartet, and her music has featured on multiple Grammy-nominated albums, including The Singing Guitar by Conspirare, BRUITS by Imani Winds, and Healing Modes by Brooklyn Rider. Many of her choral works are published by Oxford University Press.

Esmail is the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s 2020-2025 Swan Family Artist in Residence, and was Seattle Symphony’s 2020-21 Composer-in-Residence. She also holds awards/fellowships from United States Artists, the S&R Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Kennedy Center.

Esmail holds degrees in composition from The Juilliard School (BM’05) and the Yale School of Music (MM’11, MMA’14, DMA’18). Her primary teachers have included Susan Botti, Aaron Jay Kernis, Christopher Theofanidis, Christopher Rouse and Samuel Adler. She received a Fulbright-Nehru grant to study Hindustani music in India. Her Hindustani music teachers include Srimati Lakshmi Shankar and Gaurav Mazumdar, and she currently studies and collaborates with Saili Oak. Her doctoral thesis, entitled Finding Common Ground: Uniting Practices in Hindustani and Western Art Musicians explores the methods and challenges of the collaborative process between Hindustani musicians and Western composers.

Esmail was Composer-in-Residence for Street Symphony (2016-18) and is currently an Artistic Director of Shastra, a non-profit organization that promotes cross-cultural music connecting music traditions of India and the West.

She currently resides in her hometown of Los Angeles, California.

ROBERT HONSTEIN

Celebrated for his “waves of colorful sounds” (New York Times) and “smart, appealing works” (The New Yorker), Robert Honstein (b. 1980) is a New York based composer of orchestral, chamber, and vocal music. Raised in New Jersey, Honstein creates music rooted in performance and personal narrative. His background as a pianist and singer brings a deep love of instrumental and vocal practice to collaborations with leading musicians from around the world.  

Fueled by an omnivorous musical appetite, Robert’s compositions are noted for their “dry humor” (San Francisco Classical Voice), “breathless eruptions” (New York Times) and “devilishly fun writing” (The Arts Fuse). At times “profoundly moving” (Shepherd Express) and “genuinely touching” (Chicago Classical Review), Robert combines a fascination with narrative, environment, and everyday experience to create “deeply contemplative” (Bandcamp) works that probe the vicissitudes of contemporary life from the banal to the sublime. A growing interest in story-telling, expression and physicality infuses his work with a direct, evocative sensibility that is equal parts riotous frenzy, austere lyricism, and minimalist-tinged romanticism.

Leading orchestras, ensembles and soloists from around the world have performed Robert’s music including the Albany Symphony, Dayton Philharmonic, Orchestre Symphonique du Mulhouse, Slovenian National Theater Opera and Ballet Ljubljana, American Composers Orchestra, Eighth Blackbird, Ensemble Dal Niente, Present Music, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Third Angle New Music, New Music Detroit, Quince, Mivos Quartet, Del Sol Quartet, Argus Quartet, Hub New Music, Chatterbird, TIGUE, New Morse Code, Colin Currie, Theo Bleckmann, Doug Perkins, Michael Burritt, Karl Larson, Michael Compitello and Ashley Bathgate, among others. A keen interest in interdisciplinary collaboration has led to projects with artists across many disciplines, including photographer Chris McCaw, projection designer Hannash Wasileski, graphic designer Laura Grey, and director Daniel Fish. His music has also been choreographed by numerous dance companies such as the Cincinnati Ballet, Nancy Karp and Dancers, Backhaus Dance, Urbanity Dance, and Frame Dance, among others.

Robert has received awards, grants, and recognition from Carnegie Hall, the Barlow Foundation, Copland House, the New York Youth Symphony, ASCAP, the Albany Symphony, New Music USA, and the League of American Orchestras. His work has been featured at festivals around the United States, including the Tanglewood Music Center, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, and the Bang on a Can Summer Institute. He has also received residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Copland House, and I-Park. 

Robert is a founding member of the New York-based composer collective Sleeping Giant, a group of “five talented guys” (The New Yorker) that are “rapidly gaining notice for their daring innovations, stylistic range and acute attention to instrumental nuance” (WQXR). Projects have included evening length works for Eighth Blackbird, Ensemble ACJW and the Deviant Septet as well as a multi-year residency with the Albany Symphony. ‘Hand Eye’ for Eighth Blackbird was released on Cedille Records to critical acclaim, while the Giants most recent project ‘Ash’ was released on New Amsterdam Records with cellist Ashley Bathgate.

With a commitment to building community around the music of our time Robert co-founded Fast Forward Austin, an annual marathon new music festival in Austin, TX and Times Two, a Boston-based concert series that paired artists from diverse backgrounds in a laid back, accessible context. As an educator, Robert has participated in outreach projects around the country, while also serving as Program Manager and Composition Faculty at NYU, Steinhardt.

His debut album, RE: You, was released by New Focus Recordings in 2014 and his second album, Night Scenes from the Ospedale, a collaboration with the Sebastians, was released on Soundspells Productions in 2015. In 2018 his album ‘An Economy of Means’, featuring Doug Perkins and Karl Larson was released on New Focus Recordings. NPR included his piece ‘Pulse’ from Eighth Blackbird’s ‘Hand Eye’ as one of their top 100 songs of 2016. ‘Pulse’ was also featured on NPR’s Tiny Desk concert series featuring Eighth Blackbird.

Robert recently completed, Juvenalia, a percussion concerto for Colin Currie as well as Lost and Found a work for prepared solo marimba, for Michael Compitello and a consortium of percussionists. Upcoming projects include new works for the Arx Duo, No Exit New Music Ensemble, and flutist Michael Avitable.

GABRIELLA SMITH

Gabriella Smith is a composer and environmentalist. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area playing and writing music, hiking, backpacking, and volunteering on a songbird research project. Whether for orchestras, chamber ensembles, voices, or electronics, Gabriella’s music comes from a love of play, exploring new sounds on instruments, building compelling musical arcs, and connecting listeners with the natural world. Recent highlights include the premiere of her organ concerto, Breathing Forests, written for James McVinnie and LA Phil, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen; and the release of her first full-length album, Lost Coast, with cellist Gabriel Cabezas, named one of NPR Music’s “26 Favorite Albums Of 2021 (So Far)” and a “Classical Album to Hear Right Now” by The New York Times. Currently she is working on a version of Lost Coast for cello and orchestra, to be premiered by Gabriel Cabezas and LA Phil in May 2023, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.