Missy Mazzoli (1980-Present)

Introduction
Missy Mazzoli is a American composer from Pennsylvania. She was born in 1980 and attended the Yale School of Music, the Royal Conservatory of the Hague, and Boston University. She studied with a lot of notable names including 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 daring and very conceptual and has been regarded as “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 ).

Work Analysis
Missy's work is very interesting and in order to capture her style I wanted to look at her piece "Overture". The beginning of this piece perfectly shows her dark and dramatic side with a slow build when the guitar and piano start to come in. The operatic nature of the singer's voice played more into that dramatic side of her music. The dynamics of this piece also change very quickly and drastically. Around 3:50, there is a huge wall of sound that comes out of nowhere that almost operates as a jump scare. This piece could definitely be used as a piece in a drama or horror-based movie soundtrack. The vocal utilized in this piece are simple yet beautiful and even seem to be manipulated by electronic sources at times. This piece has one foot in the past along with one foot in the future of where music is going.

Comparisons
There is a huge comparison of this piece to the piece Star Child by George Crumb. Crumb utilized operatic voices in a very similar way where the vocal lines are very simple with not much going on, but the way the voice is utilized and manipulates is what makes the piece interesting. This is the same in Overture where the voice is repeating the asme like but the music around it is giving the music a different context every time the line comes around.

Observations
I really enjoyed this piece, the modern instrumentation long with the dated style of composition is a beautiful marriage of sounds that resulted in an overall gorgeous piece of music. I learn from this piece of music how certain composer can take modern aspects and give them a historic reference point that allows the music to become a grand composition that could be from 2 months ago or 20 years ago.