American composer and pianist, Missy Mazzoli, was born in Lansdale, PA on October 27, 1980. She studied at the Yale School of Music, the Royal Conservatory of the Hague and Boston University. Her teachers have been David Lang, Louis Andriessen, Aaron Jay Kernis, Martin Bresnick, Martijn Padding, and John Harbison. Having previously taught at Yale, she is now a member of the composition faculty at the Mannes College of Music. Mazzoli has received critical acclaim for her chamber, orchestral and operatic work. She is also the founder and keyboardist for Victoire, an electro-acoustic band dedicated to performing her music. Recently deemed “one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York” (NY Times) and “Brooklyn’s post-millennial Mozart” (Time Out NY), Missy Mazzoli has had her music performed by Third Coast Percussion, the Kronos Quartet, LA Opera, eighth blackbird, the BBC Symphony, Scottish Opera and many others. She was Composer-in-Residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and from 2012-2015 was Composer-in-Residence with Opera Philadelphia. Her commissions include works for Opera Philadelphia, the National Ballet of Canada, Chicago Lyric Opera and Norwegian National Opera, and the Metropolitan Opera. In 2018 she became one of the first two women, along with Jeanine Tesori, to receive a main stage commission from the Metropolitan Opera, and was nominated for a Grammy award. On July 11 the Chautauqua Institution will be workshopping her upcoming opera, Lincoln in the Bardo. Her works are published by G. Schirmer.

Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) was originally composed for chamber orchestra in 2014 and revised in 2016 for large orchestra. Commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, it received its first performance on April 14, 2014 under the baton of John Adams. The revised version of the work is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons (doubling A and C Harmonica), 2 horns (doubling A Harmonica), 2 trumpets (doubling C Harmonica), 2 trombones (doubling F Harmonica), tuba, percussion (2 players), piano (doubling Sythesizer: Organ sound), and strings.

The following program note was written by the composer:

Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) is music in the shape of a solar system, a collection of rococo loops that twist around each other within a larger orbit. The word “sinfonia” refers to baroque works for chamber orchestra but also to the old Italian term for a hurdy-gurdy, a medieval stringed instrument with constant, wheezing drones that are cranked out under melodies played on an attached keyboard. It’s a piece that churns and roils, that inches close to the listener only to leap away at breakneck speed, in the process transforming the ensemble turns into a makeshift hurdy-gurdy, flung recklessly into space. Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and later expanded for a concert with the Boulder Philharmonic.

Program Note by David B. Levy/Missy Mazzoli, © 2025