{"id":9672,"date":"2021-02-06T13:55:12","date_gmt":"2021-02-06T21:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amateurmusic.org\/test\/?p=9672"},"modified":"2021-11-13T10:39:53","modified_gmt":"2021-11-13T18:39:53","slug":"blogpostlisamezzacappa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amateurmusic.org\/info\/blogpostlisamezzacappa\/","title":{"rendered":"Six things you should know about Lisa Mezzacappa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Our February 13 online workshop, \u201cAt Home with Lisa Mezzacappa: A Jazz Listening Session<\/a>,\u201d is a guided tour of jazz history conducted by one of the Bay Area\u2019s most inventive and versatile musicians. An acclaimed composer, bassist, bandleader, and producer, Lisa Mezzacappa has collaborated with filmmakers, dancers, visual artists, and neuroscientists, and has worked with groups from duos to large ensembles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there\u2019s a lot more to Lisa Mezzacappa than that brief introduction. Here are six more things you should know about her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Lisa Mezzacappa. Photo: Heike Liss.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

She grew up in a working-class family in Staten Island, New York.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lisa started playing the clarinet in fourth grade and became a youth symphony star. In junior high school she took up the electric bass, dyed her hair blue, and \u201cjammed with dudes in garages,\u201d as she puts it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She planned to become a biologist.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

She majored in biology at the University of Virginia before adding a second major in music. Eventually, though, science took a back seat to music: Lisa came to the Bay Area and received an MA in ethnomusicology in 2003. Science still informs many of her compositions, most notably \u201cOrganelle,\u201d which Mezzacappa calls<\/a> \u201ca \u2018set\u2019 of pieces inspired by diverse scientific processes \u2013 some enormous and unfathomable, others impossibly microscopic \u2013 that form a whole through the insights and explorations of master improvisers.\u201d In 2019, \u201cOrganelle\u201d was awarded the Pauline Oliveros New Genres award from the International Alliance for Women in Music.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The score for \u201cCambium,\u201d one of the movements of \u201cOrganelle.\u201d Cambium is a tissue layer in plants.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 2005, she toured with 1960s folk-rock star Donovan.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing in the San Jose Mercury News in 2014, Richard Sheinin called <\/a>the tour \u201ca rare above-ground gig\u201d for this prolific underground musician.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She based an album on themes from film noir and detective fiction.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written for her sextet, avantNOIR<\/em> (2017)\u2014an homage to the crime stories of Dashiell Hammet and Paul Auster\u2014uses clues, imagery, and quotations from the novels as well as acoustic and electric sounds, field recordings, and composed and improvised material. From the liner notes: \u201cThe musicians find themselves in a room at the Alexandria Hotel on Kearney Street, where they are encouraged to sit and have a drink with the wily Caspar Gutman, explore various objects and personages in the room, ride the elevator, make a phone call, holler to someone in the street below for help, or get the heck out of there.\u201d (Listen to \u201cThe Ballad of Big Flora\u201d from avantNOIR<\/em><\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She won a 2020 Bay Area Jazz Award<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

San Jose Mercury News jazz writer Andrew Gilbert bestowed the puckishly titled \u201c<\/strong>In Case NASA Needs a Resident Composer Award\u201d on Lisa<\/a>for her \u201cantic, playful, and often poignant settings for the album Cosmicomics<\/em>,\u201d a project inspired by \u201cthe whimsical celestial fables of the Italian writer Italo Calvino.\u201d(Listen to the Lisa Mezzacappa Six play \u201cSolar Storms\u201d from Cosmi<\/em><\/a>C<\/em><\/a>omics<\/em><\/a>.<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her latest project is a radio opera.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Electronic Lover\u201d was released as a podcast in nine episodes. Listen to the first episode\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
REVISIT THE WORKSHOP<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

She\u2019s an acclaimed composer, bassist, bandleader, and producer. But that\u2019s just for starters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":9684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,32,25,27,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mentors","category-composers","category-jazzandmore","category-strings","category-workshops"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSix things you should know about Lisa Mezzacappa - Amateur Music Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"She\u2019s an acclaimed composer, bassist, bandleader, and producer. 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