< Missy Mazzoli is a symphonic composer with a photographer's eye

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Missy Mazzoli is a young composer who knows how to handle a symphony orchestra.

(SOUNDBITE OF MISSY MAZZOLI'S "ORPHEUS UNDONE: PT. 1: BEHOLD THE MACHINE, O DEATH")

CHANG: Mazzoli is known for her operas, but a new album called "Dark With Excessive Bright" proves that she can coax unusual sounds from purely orchestral musicians. Our reviewer, NPR's Tom Huizenga, has been listening.

TOM HUIZENGA, BYLINE: When Missy Mazzoli was 10, she confidently declared she was a composer although she hadn't written a single note. Her family thought it was a phase she would get over. Well, she didn't. Now 42, Mazzoli is among today's busiest and most respected composers, and her new album is the first to showcase the symphonic side of her work.

(SOUNDBITE OF MISSY MAZZOLI'S "ORPHEUS UNDONE: PT. 2: WE OF VIOLENCE, WE ENDURE")

HUIZENGA: With an orchestra full of instruments and a penchant for unusual harmonies, Mazzoli conjures peculiar sounds. In her "Sinfonia," subtitled "For Orbiting Spheres," she calls for harmonicas in three different keys to produce wheezy, otherworldly tones. She says it sounds like a hurdy-gurdy flung recklessly into space.

(SOUNDBITE OF MISSY MAZZOLI'S "SINFONIA (FOR ORBITING SPHERES)")

HUIZENGA: After Mazzoli's childhood piano lessons came gigs in punk bands and composition classes at Yale. These days, she navigates Carnegie Hall debuts and commissions such as the violin concerto called "Dark With Excessive Bright" which gives this album its title.

(SOUNDBITE OF MISSY MAZZOLI'S "DARK WITH EXCESSIVE BRIGHT")

HUIZENGA: Like a photographer, Mazzoli captures moments rich in texture and charged with expression. Hard to describe, but you can feel it. Like here, where the orchestra slides up to a cadence, low-strings pluck the beat, high-strings twinkle with glitter and, in the middle, a melody wanders.

(SOUNDBITE OF MISSY MAZZOLI'S "DARK WITH EXCESSIVE BRIGHT")

HUIZENGA: So far, Mazzoli's greatest success has come in the opera house. On the heels of her acclaimed "Breaking The Waves," she, along with Jeanine Tesori, was the first woman to be commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera. And while this album is purely symphonic, there is drama in the music. Mazzoli dedicates the piece "These Worlds Within Us" to her father, a Vietnam vet. And in this passage, Mazzoli proves she can make an orchestra roar.

(SOUNDBITE OF MISSY MAZZOLI'S "THESE WORLDS IN US")

HUIZENGA: Coming of age in a DIY environment and encouraged by outfits like the Bang on a Can collective, Mazzoli is at home using rock instruments and electronics in her music. On "Vespers For Amplified Violin" (ph) played with ardor and agility by Peter Herresthal, Mazzoli sampled old organs, strings and voices, then waterlogged them in distortion.

(SOUNDBITE OF MISSY MAZZOLI'S "VESPERS FOR VIOLIN")

HUIZENGA: Missy Mazzoli likes to think of herself as an opera composer. But with symphonic music as expressive and rigorously built as this, not to mention the dynamic performances here by the Bergen and Arctic Philharmonic Orchestras, we kindly ask her to keep up the good work.

CHANG: The album is "Dark With Excessive Bright" by Missy Mazzoli. Our reviewer is NPR's Tom Huizenga.

(SOUNDBITE OF MISSY MAZZOLI'S "VESPERS FOR VIOLIN")

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