Missy Mazzoli

I think there's just been this "thing" that's developed, this way that we have of talking about our music that alienates people.…

— Missy Mazzoli

If the music is good, and if it makes sense as a strong structure and as a drama, and things happen as…

— Missy Mazzoli

Of course I love when people are quiet, but I also love when people are comfortable. I love when people emote. The…

— Missy Mazzoli

I don't think anyone listening to my music needs any special knowledge. They don't need to have a background in contemporary music.…

— Missy Mazzoli

The goal is that people will find something of themselves in it. But you don't need to know what a hexachord is!…

— Missy Mazzoli

Sometimes you feel some artists are doing the same thing that you're doing but in a different field. But they have the…

— Missy Mazzoli

I have this ideal listener, as John Cage did. This listener doesn't bring expectations that my music will fit into some part…

— Missy Mazzoli

There are some superficial things that connect me to the stream. There's instrumentation, there's timbre, use of electronics, the way that samples…

— Missy Mazzoli

There's some ambient music that doesn't do anything. I wouldn't say that that's narrative. It is narrative in that it creates a…

— Missy Mazzoli

I feel like there's not this black-and-white division between concert hall music and music that bands play in a bar. I don't…

— Missy Mazzoli

I write my music with the idea that it will appeal to all of those people, and I want them to go…

— Missy Mazzoli

It's only when it's smoothed out by history and we try to make sense of it - this incredibly complicated period when…

— Missy Mazzoli

I'm not religious, but I've always been attracted to the rituals of religion; as a kid, Sunday church was the closest thing…

— Missy Mazzoli

I don't think that those things [so called common practice] ever truly existed in the way that we like to believe that…

— Missy Mazzoli

I want my music to be something that people use in order to access parts of themselves. So in that sense, every…

— Missy Mazzoli

I really think of my motives, my melodies, my harmonies, as being these things that are very much alive. They have these…

— Missy Mazzoli

For me, writing music is a way of processing the world. It's not a concrete thing, as in, "This piece is about…

— Missy Mazzoli