Missy Mazzoli’s distinctive music draws on influences from the Baroque to minimalism and indie rock, reaching hearts and minds through a complex language that’s sharp, savvy and warmly inclusive. In the UK, the American composer is best known for her opera Breaking the Waves, based on Lars von Trier’s film, seen at the 2019 Edinburgh international festival. The BBC Symphony Orchestra’s Total Immersion day was a chance to get to know a broad cross section of her work, culminating in a staging of her first opera, Song from the Uproar: The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt.
Following the deaths of her mother, brother and father, the Swiss-born Eberhardt took herself off to north Africa where she commenced a life of unfettered self-discovery. She rode deserts on horseback dressed as a man, outraged the French authorities, married an Algerian soldier, converted to Sufism and died at the age of 27 in a flash flood.
