Born in Pennsylvania, Missy Mazzoli went on to study at Yale and the Royal Conservatory of the Hague. She is a composer and keyboardist, and part of a generation of American composers greatly influenced by the minimalist music of Steve Reich and Philip Glass. 

 

Like Doublespeak, Still Life With Avalanche was commissioned by eighth blackbird. Mazzoli has explained that she set out to write it while in residence at Blue Mountain Center in upstate New York. The music is characteristically melodic and, after a gradual introduction characterised by the unusual sound of harmonicas, explodes into a joyous tutti celebration.

 

Midway through the composition process, Mazzoli learned of the sudden death of her cousin. This tragedy reveals itself in the breakdown the music undergoes, after which nothing is the same. A darker central section gives way to an energetic recapitulation, and yet the shadows remain, the vivacious opening melody now haunted by death. As such, she writes that the piece is “about finding beauty in chaos, and vice versa”, and is dedicated to “the memory (the joyful, the exuberant and the shocking) of Andrew Rose.”

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Joshua Ballance