Press — Missy Mazzoli

Published March 16, 2021

The Economist

“Ms Mazzoli’s operatic works have foregrounded women who doubt or flout social norms, and clash with communal authority.”

Published March 8, 2021

BBC Magazine

“In 2018, Missy Mazzoli made history when she became one of the first two women (along with Jeanine Tesori) to be commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera. She has chosen to…

By Steven Winn

Published September 19, 2020

San Francisco Classical Voice

“…Proving Up makes for compelling listening. Both the expansive Nebraska landscape and claustrophobic forces of psychology, family, bureaucracy, and blasted hopes are fully present. If those vectors become tangled now…

Published April 18, 2020

Radiolab

Missy Mazzoli featured on Radiolab’s episode The Cataclysm Sentence. Summary: One day in 1961, the famous physicist Richard Feynman stepped in front of a Caltech lecture hall and posed this…

By Keziah Weir

Published September 16, 2019

Vanity Fair

“…Nézet-Séguin, who launched his tenure by commissioning operas from composers Missy Mazzoli and Jeanine Tesori (the first women to create new work for the Met in the company’s 140-year history;…

By Kate Molleson

Published August 16, 2019

The Guardian

“What happens when you add sound to such formidably oppressive filmic hush? The New York composer Missy Mazzoli has spent years grappling with that question. ‘Back in 2013,’ she says, ‘my…

By Chris Ruel

Published July 14, 2019

Opera Wire

“The runners up for this year’s award are “An American Soldier” by composer Huang Ruo and librettist David Henry Hwang; and “Proving Up” by composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce…

By Charles T. Downey

Published December 22, 2018

Washington Classical Review

“Best New Work: Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative had not produced a new opera that could be called great—until this year. Missy Mazzoli, a composer with a major success…

By Anne Midgette

Published December 7, 2018

The Washington Post

“…Missy Mazzoli continued her ascendance as one of the most prominent and badass voices in the field. Her latest opera, “Proving Up,” premiered at the Washington National Opera in January, and…

By David Patrick Stearns

Published December 2, 2018

WQXR Blog

“…Meanwhile, the New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera unveiled dramatic new programming developments under their respective new music directors, Jaap Van Zweden and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The orchestra had a bold…

By Quinn Moreland

Published December 1, 2018

The National

“Mazzoli’s third full-length opera, Proving Up, recently closed its acclaimed New York run, and she’s emerging from the whirlwind. Based on a short story by Swamplandia! author Karen Russell, Proving Up examines the American…

By Anthony Hawley

Published December 1, 2018

The Brooklyn Rail

“Composer Missy Mazzoli is at the top of her game. Having just premiered her third opera, Proving Up, to wide acclaim, Mazzoli was recently commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera; one of…

By Zoë Madonna

Published November 16, 2018

NPR Music

“Missy Mazzoli, 38, is trying to tear down the gates for new composers and listeners. She’s a prominent figure in new music; she has three operas to her name with…

By Evan Chung

Published November 15, 2018

The World

“Karen Russell’s short story “Proving Up” is a bleak tale about one such family trying to earn their plot in post-Civil War Nebraska. And it’s now been adapted into a…

By Zachary Woolfe

Published September 7, 2018

The New York Times

“With the New York premiere of “Proving Up,” at the Miller Theater on Sept. 26 and 28, the composer Missy Mazzoli has that contemporary musical miracle: a hotly anticipated third opera, a…

By Tysen Dauer

Published August 14, 2018

San Francisco Classical Voice

“Mazzoli’s Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) stood out in the program as a masterpiece from start to finish.”

By Lisa Houston

Published August 7, 2018

San Francisco Classical Voice

“So far in her impressive career, the music of composer Missy Mazzoli has mostly defied labels. Categorizations like “multimedia” or the more flattering “dynamic amalgamation” carry little weight with the 37-year-old New…

By Ricky O'Bannon

Published May 1, 2018

21CM

“I think my music is very narrative or cinematic at times,” [Mazzoli] says. “Even my instrumental music usually tells some sort of story. I’m always thinking about the psychology behind…

By Santosh Venkataraman

Published April 24, 2018

Opera Wire

“The music of Missy Mazzoli is a treat in and of itself and that is especially the case in collaboration with Royce Vavrek. It’s a rarity to see a tale…

By Heidi Waleson

Published April 16, 2018

The Wall Street Journal

“Ms. Mazzoli’s expert score is ominously insinuating and brutal by turns.”

By Betsie Freeman

Published April 14, 2018

Omaha World-Herald

“Mazzoli’s music, though clearly contemporary, nevertheless fit the setting and the mood of the opera. And Vavrek’s libretto spoke volumes with relatively few well-chosen words.”

By MeiMei Fox

Published March 22, 2018

Forbes

“[Mazzoli] defines her life purpose as “helping people connect to emotions or experiences through music, and enabling more young people, particularly women, to express themselves through composition.” Mazzoli lives out…

By Anne Midgette

Published January 21, 2018

The Washington Post

“…it was “Proving Up” that left me ruminating in its wake, torn between an experience that was in many ways deliberately unpleasant and the power of the statement its creators…

By Anne Midgette

Published January 12, 2018

The Washington Post

“In the new music world, however, Mazzoli is less a black sheep than a sacred cow: an “it” girl of the contemporary scene. Seven or eight years ago, she started…

By Anne Midgette

Published August 4, 2017

The Washington Post

“Already an established fixture on the Brooklyn scene with her band, Victoire, the 36-year-old Mazzoli came to the attention of a wider audience in 2016 with her second opera, “Breaking…

By Janelle Gelfand

Published July 21, 2017

Cincinnati Enquirer

“The opera unfolded like a dream against a bare set consisting of hanging scrims, subtle lighting and a single tree, The music began with a static sound, like an old,…

By Victoria Looseleaf

Published May 22, 2017

KCET

“I feel very happy to be a role model for young women,” said Mazzoli. “Every day I get email or phone calls from female composers around the world looking for…

By Merrin Lazyan

Published March 28, 2017

WQXR Blog

“In her two full-length operas to date, Mazzoli has turned her inventive and daring approach to the subject of young women who take risks and make sacrifices to enter the…

By Albert Innaurata

Published September 26, 2016

Parterre Box

“Missy Mazzoli, a 36-year-old composer from Brooklyn, has created the most startling and moving new American opera in memory.”

By Heidi Waleson

Published September 26, 2016

The Wall Street Journal

“Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves is savage, heartbreaking, and thoroughly original.”

By Zachary Woolfe

Published September 25, 2016

The New York Times

“It is not easy to find new operas that command attention, tell their story lucidly, and create a powerful, permeating mood. Dark and daring, Breaking the Waves does all this…

By David Patrick Stearns

Published September 24, 2016

The Philadelphia Inquirer

“a powerful, fully realized, artistically significant piece…if you believe the only depressing art is bad art, Breaking the Waves is exhilarating.”

By David Shengold

Published September 22, 2016

Opera News

“Breaking the Waves stands among the best 21st-century American operas yet.”

By Elaine Schmidt

Published May 7, 2016

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“The two ensembles worked as a single entity. They served seamlessly as supporting cast, stage crew and to a degree, as actual props and scenery throughout the hourlong show, adding…

By John Schaefer

Published December 31, 2015

New Sounds

In a not-so-shocking break with tradition, John Schaefer reveals his “Best Of 2015” list, before 2015 actually ends, but long after most best-of lists have gone to print or air.

By Steve Smith

Published December 11, 2015

The Night After Night Files

Steve Smith includes Mazzoli’s Vespers for a New Dark Age on his yearly album roundup.

Published December 1, 2015

textura

“Brooklyn-based composer Missy Mazzoli follows her 2012 release Song from the Uproar: The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt with the equally stellar Vespers for a New Dark Age. Over…

By Mark Swed

Published October 9, 2015

Los Angeles Times

“[Mazzoli’s] wonderful score is seductive, meditative, spiritually elusive and subversive. With it, we can welcome a new natural for the art form. And now all eyes and ears are on…

By Adam Wasserman

Published October 1, 2015

Opera News

“Two of the most compelling compositional voices to have emerged from Brooklyn in recent years are Missy Mazzoli and Corey Dargel, who each present their own brands of modern vocal…

By Nate Chinen

Published March 30, 2015

The New York Times

“The composer and keyboardist Missy Mazzoli has a thing for unlikely connections and startling gestures, and one of her gifts is the ability to tease out the hidden logic behind her choices.…

By Tom Huizenga

Published March 22, 2015

NPR Music

“Mazzoli’s Vespers is an ominous twist on an ancient musical and religious tradition — the evening Vesper prayer service observed in many Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran churches. A “distorted, wild, blasphemous take,”…

By Jayson Greene

Published March 13, 2015

Pitchfork

“Music that once sounded like the lonely movement of your own thoughts now calls out to you in a voice of its own. The singers are bell-clear and troubled, like…

Published March 1, 2015

textura

“On purely listening terms, the recording casts a powerful spell. In augmenting the singers’ incantatory vocal lines with resplendent instrumental textures, Mazzoli has fashioned an engrossing classical-electronic-vocal epic that sounds…

Published January 7, 2015

The New York Times

“The pianist Shai Wosner again proves himself a fine Schubertian with a gorgeously phrased and soulful interpretation of the “Moments Musicaux” (D. 780) that traverses the full palette of intimacy and power.…

By Barbara Jepson

Published December 10, 2014

Wall Street Journal

“Curiously addictive…using simple musical materials – a plaintive melody over gently rocking, repeated notes and occasional chordal exclamations in the bass register – Ms. Mazzoli conjures nostalgic longing in her…

By Mark Swed

Published April 10, 2014

Los Angeles Times

“Mazzoli’s is music not so much of, as out of, the spheres. Strings and winds swirl and swoon, sliding magically around pitches. There is no pulse, no thousand points of…

By David Patrick Stearns

Published March 27, 2014

The Philadelphia Inquirer

“In Breaking the Waves, based on the von Trier film, Mazzoli’s voice is like a 21st-century refraction of the Smetana/Janacek nexus, conveying the under-the-surface repression in the small-town community.”

By Stephanie Orentas

Published February 27, 2014

Baeble Music

“Mazzoli’s compositions have been nothing but excellent, powerful and thought-provoking, and Saturday night’s premiere of Vespers for a New Dark Age continued the stream of works by Mazzoli that leave…

By Jayson Greene

Published February 11, 2014

Pitchfork

“Their sophomore effort is officially on the way, and Krier’s gorgeous ambient landscape of synths applied to “A Thousand Tongues”, the first song from the project, is a taste of…

By Anne Arenstein

Published October 9, 2013

CityBeat

“The Constella Festival got it right when they named Missy Mazzoli as this year’s composer-in-residence. At 33, she’s earned the awards, commissions and acclaim you’d expect from artists twice her…

By Matthew Sigman

Published August 1, 2013

Opera News

“Missy Mazzoli, whose compositions are equally at home uptown at Carnegie Hall, in the form of orchestral works, or downtown at the Kitchen, as electronic–vocal collaborations, has no qualms about…

By Joel Hoffman

Published June 5, 2013

The Rumpus

“Missy Mazzoli challenges the barriers that historically have kept newly composed classical music away from the ears of many music and arts lovers. Her work is part of a movement…

By Sacha Verna

Published April 15, 2013

Swiss NPR

“Missy Mazzoli wrote “Song from the Uproar: The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt”. The 32-year-old New York composer came across an English edition of Isabelle Eberhardt’s diaries in a…

Published December 24, 2012

New York Music Daily

“Mazzoli is a star of the indie classical world, walking the uneasy ground between the avant garde and rock with a style that’s ethereal and hypnotic yet often wary and…

By Steve Smith

Published December 20, 2012

Time Out New York

“After years of growing up in public, Missy Mazzoli’s dreamlike opera lived up to great expectations and made a star of Abigail Fischer.”

By Alex Ross

Published December 18, 2012

The New Yorker

Song from the Uproar mentioned in The New Yorker’s Memorable Performances of 2012.

Published December 1, 2012

textura

“Mazzoli possesses a startlingly original imagination plus superb command of vocal-and-instrumental interplay. Song from the Uproar is the latest in what’s, frankly, been a rather staggering run for the New…

Published November 20, 2012

NPR Music

“Like Eberhardt, Mazzoli is carving her own path. In a landscape that is ever changing and ever challenging for today’s composers, Mazzoli thrives on a kind of do-it-yourself aesthetic borrowed…

By Daniel Stephen Johnson

Published November 1, 2012

WQXR

“Solid gold…flowing from one number to the next, the music tells its own story, building to a series of emotional climaxes with the narrative assurance of a bonafide opera composer.”

By James Jorden

Published October 19, 2012

New York Post

“Then, in a moment of eerie beauty, [Maya Beiser] slashed the curtain and emerged wearing a filmy lace gown. Burrowing into the ashes covering the stage floor, she retrieved a…

By Corinna da Fonseca-Wolheim

Published October 18, 2012

The New York Times

“In Ms. Mazzoli’s “Salt,” Ms. Beiser was joined by Ms. Davis, a singer whose range and color palette vie with that of a cello. Her otherworldly voice and ritualistic gestures…

Published July 15, 2012

The New York Times

The New York Times calls Victoire’s show at the River to River Festival “invitingly quirky,” “evocative and alluring.”

By David Patrick Stearns

Published March 25, 2012

The Philadelphia Inquirer

“What [Mazzoli] does is so entrancing, you can’t imagine any alert denizen of the 21st century not being drawn in. She loves big washes of sound – often eelectric guitar…

By Steve Smith

Published March 1, 2012

The New York Times

“in the electric surge of Ms. Mazzoli’s score you felt the joy, risk and limitless potential of free spirits unbound.”

By Heidi Waleson

Published February 28, 2012

The Wall Street Journal

“[Song from the Uproar] is powerful and new.”

Published January 31, 2012

Bric Community Media

“Formed by Missy Mazzoli, a visionary composer and keyboardist based in Bed-Stuy, Victoire is an all-star, all-female quintet, that blends a dreamy post-modern sound, with indie chamber electronica.They describe their…

By Allan Kozinn

Published December 9, 2011

The New York Times

The New York Times takes a stab at defining the current “movement” of young composers, including Missy Mazzoli, Jefferson Friedman, Du Yun, Judd Greenstein, Nico Muhly, Anna Clyne, and many…

By Anne Midgette

Published August 19, 2011

The Washington Post

“Another current trend that’s been on the rise over the last five decades is the return to the age of the composer-performer. Those who write music and want it performed…

CityBeat

“Song from the Uproar by Missy Mazzoli was the highlight of last summer’s opera season, thanks to Abigail Fischer’s powerful performance as Isabelle Eberhardt, the Russian-born Swiss adventurer and writer. Although…

CityBeat

“Song from the Uproar by Missy Mazzoli was the highlight of last summer’s opera season, thanks to Abigail Fischer’s powerful performance as Isabelle Eberhardt, the Russian-born Swiss adventurer and writer. Although…

By A.D. Amorosi

Philadelphia Style

“Reflective avant-garde composer and keyboardist Missy Mazzoli has won dazzling acclaim and critical respect for her somber, swelling pieces, which have resonated through souch hallowed halls as Carnegie Hall and…

By Matthew Zapruder and Missy Mazzoli

The Believer

Missy and Matthew discuss music, poetry, Missy’s recent album Vespers for a New Dark Age (featuring Matthew’s poetry as lyrics,) compositional processes and childhood loneliness formations, good and bad gigs,…

National Geographic

Missy’s opera Song from the Uproar mentioned in National Geographic.