Deemed “Brooklyn’s post-millenial Mozart” (Time Out New York) and “among the most inventive and surprising composers working today” (The New York Times), GRAMMY®-nominated composer Missy Mazzoli has established herself as “the 21st century’s gatecrasher of new classical music” (NPR).

Widely celebrated for expanding the sound and scope of contemporary classical music, she has been commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony, LA Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Opera Comique, Scottish Opera, and Opera Philadelphia, among many others, and artists who have championed her work include the Kronos Quartet, Emmanuel Ax, Jennifer Koh, and more.

Mazzoli’s work, which spans opera, orchestral and chamber music, ballet, film, and television, establishes her as a defining composer of her generation.

Highlights of her 26-27 season include the world premiere of two operas, Lincoln in the Bardo at The Metropolitan Opera and The Galloping Cure at the Edinburgh International Festival.

Lincoln in the Bardo makes history as the first opera by a female composer to be commissioned and premiered solely by the Met Opera. It is based on the award-winning novel by George Saunders with a libretto by longtime collaborator Royce Vavrek, and will receive its premiere in October 2026 with a cast that includes Peter Mattei, Christine Goerke, Anthony Roth Costanzo, and Stephanie Blythe.

In August 2026, the Edinburgh International Festival premieres Mazzoli and Vavrek’s The Galloping Cure with a cast led by Daniela Mack and Justin Austin. The work was commissioned by Opera Ventures Productions, Scottish Opera, NorrlandsOperan AB, Edinburgh International Festival, and San Francisco Opera.

In the spring, the New York Philharmonic and Elbphilharmonie Orchester premiere Mazzoli’s new piano concerto for Leif Ove Andsnes.

Opera lies at the heart of Mazzoli’s artistic identity, with Alex Ross calling Mazzoli’s work “potent, chilling, and excruciatingly relevant.” Last season, Mazzoli and Vavrek’s latest opera The Listeners received its US Premiere to rave reviews, with The New Yorker calling it Mazzoli’s “most original work to date… sinuously songful vocal lines; furtively expressive instrumental solos; a harmonic language that finds newness and strangeness in the interstices of traditional tonality; unerring narrative pacing.” Based on an original story by playwright Jordan Tannahill, the piece was commissioned by Opera Philadelphia, Norwegian National Opera, and Lyric Opera of Chicago, and premiered in Oslo in 2022 in a production directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz. Set in the present day, it follows an invented cult’s search for belonging and meaning, examining the human search for belonging and the seductive pull of charismatic figures who exploit those desires. Described as “harrowing” and “powerful…a true opera of our time” (The Washington Post), Mazzoli’s third opera, Proving Up—also with Vavrek—offers a surreal meditation on the American dream through the story of a 19th-century Nebraskan homesteading family. Commissioned by Washington National Opera, Opera Omaha, and Miller Theatre, the work draws on a short story by Karen Russell.

Breaking the Waves, another of her collaborations with Vavrek, has further cemented Mazzoli’s international reputation, with fourteen productions to date and two more scheduled for 2026. Critics have hailed it as “among the best 21st-century operas yet” (Opera News), as well as “savage, heartbreaking and thoroughly original” (The Wall Street Journal) and “dark and daring” (The New York Times).

Mazzoli’s debut opera, Song from the Uproar, premiered in a sold-out production by Beth Morrison Projects at The Kitchen in 2012 and was praised as “powerful and new” (The Wall Street Journal), while The New York Times noted the “joy, risk, and limitless potential” of its score. That same year, she premiered SALT, a music-theatrical retelling of the story of Lot’s Wife created for cellist Maya Beiser and vocalist Helga Davis, with text by Erin Cressida Wilson and direction by Robert Woodruff. Presented at the BAM Next Wave Festival and at UNC Chapel Hill, the work was described by Time Out New York as “a dynamic amalgamation that unapologetically pushes boundaries.”

Beyond opera, Mazzoli’s recent highlights include the world premiere of Orpheus Alive, a ballet score commissioned and premiered by the National Ballet of Canada; the premiere of her Violin Concerto: Procession with Jennifer Koh and the National Symphony Orchestra, followed by performances with the Cincinnati Symphony and at the BBC Proms; and the world premiere of Millennium Canticles by Third Coast Percussion.

Her double bass concerto Dark with Excessive Bright received its U.S. premiere with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, with the violin version later premiered by the Atlanta Symphony. Her music has also been performed by the Berlin Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Colorado Symphony, and Opéra National de Bordeaux, among many others. She was one of 16 composers commissioned by Adam Tendler for his lauded Inheritancesproject. In addition, she has curated programs with the San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and Chicago Symphony Orchestra, shaping concerts that reflect her wide-ranging musical vision.

Mazzoli is also an accomplished composer for film and television, having written and performed music for the fictional composer Thomas Pembridge on the Amazon series Mozart in the Jungle, and contributing scores to the documentaries Detropia and Book of Conrad, as well as the feature film A Woman, A Part.

In 2024, Mazzoli was awarded the Marie-Josée Kravis Prize for New Music at the New York Philharmonic, alongside David Lang. From 2018 to 2021, Mazzoli served as Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and she has held residencies with Opera Philadelphia, Gotham Chamber Opera, and Music-Theatre Group.

She is currently Composer-in-Residence at the Bard College Conservatory of Music. In 2016, with composer Ellen Reid, she founded Luna Composition Lab, a mentorship program supporting young female, non-binary, and gender non-conforming composers. In celebration of their 10th anniversary the Luna Composition Lab is embarking on an ambitious international commissioning initiative that includes nearly seventy five new works by fifty Luna Lab alumni, co-commissioned, presented, and performed by ensemble and presenter partners around the world.

Mazzoli is a GRAMMY®-nominated recording artist whose music appears on labels including BIS, Deutsche Grammophon, New Amsterdam, Cedille, Pentatone, and Innova. Recent releases include Maya Beiser’s recording of Salt on Islandia Music Records, an all-Mazzoli album from the Arctic Philharmonic on BIS, and collaborations with Third Coast Percussion and mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo.

As a performer, she appears regularly as pianist and keyboardist with Victoire, the band she founded in 2008 to perform her own work; their debut album Cathedral City was named one of the year’s best by Time Out New York, NPR, The New Yorker, and The New York Times.

Mazzoli is the recipient of Musical America’s 2022 Composer of the Year honor, three GRAMMY® nominations, the inaugural Music Critics Association of America Award for Best Opera, the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and numerous ASCAP Young Composer Awards. A Fulbright fellow and alumna of the Yale School of Music, the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, and Boston University, she is published exclusively by G. Schirmer.

Headshot by Marylene Mey.