Exploring New Music: Bassist-Composer Lisa Mezzacappa

By Carla Escoda, 17 May 2019

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“I wanted to play music that I wasn’t being called to play, so I realized I had to start writing it”

Bachtrack, 26th May

The Toronto-born composer talks about new work Romanza for piano and orchestra, theatricality in music, taking influences from psychology, and the effect on his music of working for the United Nations.

San Francisco Symphony names Elim Chan as next Music Director

Bachtrack, 22nd May

The Hong Kong-born conductor joins the San Francisco Symphony as Music Director Designate, effective immediately, and begins her tenure as Music Director in September 2027.

Kith and kin: Brett Dean and family prepare Of One Blood

Lawrence Dunn, 1st May

Brett Dean, Heather Betts and Lotte Betts-Dean sit down to discuss their work on Of One Blood, a new opera dramatising the lives of Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots – affairs of the family all round.

New songs: Jessie Montgomery in conversation

Kurt Gottschalk, 31st March

Among the most performed living composers by orchestras worldwide, Montgomery talks about her personal approach to musical storytelling, and writing a new cello concerto for Abel Selaocoe.

The giving of gifts: Pierre-Laurent Aimard on György Kurtág

Tim Rutherford-Johnson, 16th February

As the idiosyncratic, laconic Hungarian composer approaches his 100th birthday, we talk to Pierre-Laurent Aimard about his decades-long relationship with György Kurtág, on his unique playfulness and gift-giving.

Dinosaurs of the Baroque: discovering Les Dinos et l’Arche

Lawrence Dunn, 2nd January

Thomas Leininger’s Baroque-inspired children’s opera at Geneva’s La Cité Bleue is a unique stylistic departure, which asks the essential question: what happened to the dinosaurs left off Noah’s Ark?

Carla Escoda

Born in the Philippines, Carla trained as a ballet and modern dancer with the Alice Reyes Dance Company in Manila. She has lived and worked in Asia and the U.S. and has written about the arts for Bachtrack, KQED (the northern California public media broadcaster), Dance International, dance journal/hk, the Huffington Post, Dance Europe and ballettothepeople.

Exploring New Music: San Francisco Bassist-Composer Lisa Mezzacappa