Missy Mazzoli to continue as CSO Mead Composer-in-Residence through June

Missy Mazzoli, whose critically acclaimed works, including three operas, have made her one of today’s leading voices in contemporary music, will continue as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Mead Composer-in-Residence through June 2021.

Initially appointed to the position by Music Director Riccardo Muti in July 2018, Mazzoli has focused her work during the first two years of her tenure on curating programs for MusicNOW, the CSO's contemporary music series. Her programs have included several commissions, U.S. premieres and works by composers who had not been featured on the series previously, as well as pieces by underrepresented and female voices in contemporary music, some with ties to Chicago.

This season, Mazzoli’s own compositions, the 2010 string quartet Death Valley Junction and the 2006 percussion work Volume, have been featured on the series CSO Sessions, streaming on CSOtv; her 2009 sextet for mixed ensemble Still Life With Avalanche has been performed on the Civic Orchestra of Chicago series on CSOtv. Her Orpheus Undone, which was commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and originally scheduled for world premiere performances with Riccardo Muti in 2020, has been postponed due to the pandemic, with new performance dates to be announced.

In 2021, Mazzoli will curate two contemporary music programs for CSO Sessions, which features newly recorded performances by Chicago Symphony Orchestra musicians filmed in Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center, and will convene a virtual symposium for young female composers.

“This extension of my residency with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will allow me to finally present some of the newly commissioned works and world premieres scheduled for recent seasons,” Mazzoli said. “This year has brought innumerable unexpected challenges, but I remain committed to the composers I have programmed and to the musicians of the orchestra. I am thrilled to have this opportunity to bring to life events that have long been in the works.”

In recent years, Mazzoli has continued to garner recognition for her work, including a Grammy nomination in the best classical composition category for her Vespers for Violin, recorded by violinist Olivia De Prato. Mazzoli also is one of the first two women (along with composer Jeanine Tesori) to receive a commission from the Metropolitan Opera. An active TV and film composer, Mazzoli wrote and performed music for the fictional character Thomas Pembridge on the Amazon Prime Video series "Mozart in the Jungle." She also contributed music to the documentaries "Detropia" and "Book of Conrad," and the film "A Woman, A Part."

Mazzoli, who is based in Brooklyn and attended Yale School of Music, the Royal Conservatory of the Hague and Boston University, studied with teachers including Louis Andriessen, John Harbison, David Lang and Aaron Jay Kernis.

The Mead Composer-in-Residence position at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is endowed through a generous gift from Cindy Sargent and the late Sally Mead Hands.