14+ Missy Mazzoli Quotes On Education, Friendship And World

Missy Mazzoli is an American composer and pianist from Brooklyn, New York. She is a prolific composer, having written over 100 works for orchestra, opera, chamber ensemble, and solo instruments. Her works have been performed by major orchestras and ensembles around the world, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Kronos Quartet. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Missy Mazzoli on education, love, life.

I don't think that those things [so called common practice] ever truly existed in the way that we like to believe that they do, the way we learn about them in music history class. Those things are defined at least decades after they happen. And even then, it's a fallacy because when you're in the moment, when you're in a thriving scene of musicians, inevitably everyone is going to be doing something completely different from everyone else — Missy Mazzoli

Of course I love when people are quiet, but I also love when people are comfortable. I love when people emote. The flip side of having a totally silent audience is that they're less likely to react to you in the space, and I think that's one of the great things about performing live: you get energy from the audience, and you give energy back to them. There's interaction. — Missy Mazzoli

The goal is that people will find something of themselves in it. But you don't need to know what a hexachord is! You don't need to know what serialism is. You don't need to know anything technical. It's more about the state of mind of being open and listening to what's really going on. And I think that the more open you can be, the better. So maybe it's not good to have expectations. — Missy Mazzoli

I feel like there's not this black-and-white division between concert hall music and music that bands play in a bar. I don't know if this was ever truly the case, but I don't feel that I need to decide between playing for a sit-down, totally silent audience and playing for a bunch of noisy, drunk people in a bar. What I do with the group is somewhere in between. — Missy Mazzoli

For me, writing music is a way of processing the world. It's not a concrete thing, as in, "This piece is about giraffes." It's much more of an emotional sort of thing. I want people to find something out about themselves through my music, something that was inaccessible before, something that they were suppressing, something that they couldn't really confront. — Missy Mazzoli

I'm not religious, but I've always been attracted to the rituals of religion; as a kid, Sunday church was the closest thing I had to an interactive, theatrical experience. — Missy Mazzoli

If the music is good, and if it makes sense as a strong structure and as a drama, and things happen as a result of what happened before, not just as a string of unrelated events, then the question doesn't come up. — Missy Mazzoli

I have this ideal listener, as John Cage did. This listener doesn't bring expectations that my music will fit into some part of music history, or that it will do any particular thing. This listener is just open to listening. — Missy Mazzoli

It's only when it's smoothed out by history and we try to make sense of it - this incredibly complicated period when everyone's doing something different every day - that we look for those stylistic similarities and we say, "Well, that's what that was about," and sort of forget all the other nuance. I definitely feel that that's true for this time in my community of artists, and I'm sure that it was true at other times too. — Missy Mazzoli

There are some superficial things that connect me to the stream. There's instrumentation, there's timbre, use of electronics, the way that samples are used, the way the electric guitar is used. I'm thinking of things that are particular to this era. But I don't always feel particularly close to the music of my peers. I often feel that I have more in common with writers and visual artists. I try to connect to people in an emotional kind of way. — Missy Mazzoli

Sometimes you feel some artists are doing the same thing that you're doing but in a different field. But they have the same approach. Their method of research and gathering data is the same as yours. — Missy Mazzoli

I don't think anyone listening to my music needs any special knowledge. They don't need to have a background in contemporary music. They don't need to go to new-music concerts all the time in order to be able to understand it. — Missy Mazzoli

There's some ambient music that doesn't do anything. I wouldn't say that that's narrative. It is narrative in that it creates a sort of world where nothing happens, where really nothing happens, so you become a different person after hearing eight minutes of exactly the same thing. Yes, I hear music all the time in which one idea is strung together to another idea, and I feel that such music is non-narrative. — Missy Mazzoli

I really think of my motives, my melodies, my harmonies, as being these things that are very much alive. They have these little lives of their own that are stretched and pulled, and I do conceive of my music in a very narrative way. — Missy Mazzoli

Life Lessons by Missy Mazzoli

1. Missy Mazzoli's work demonstrates the importance of pushing boundaries and exploring new musical ideas. She has shown that it is possible to combine classical music with modern genres and create something unique and powerful.
2. Missy Mazzoli's work also highlights the importance of collaboration. She has worked with a variety of artists from different backgrounds to create new and exciting music.
3. Finally, Missy Mazzoli's work has shown us that it is possible to create beautiful music that is accessible to all audiences, regardless of their musical background or experience.