Na'ama Zisser | |
---|---|
Genres | |
Occupation | Composer |
Website | www.naamazisser.com |
Na'ama Zisser is a London-based composer.
Her work is visually driven and often collaborative with other art forms, with a focus on opera, contemporary dance, moving image, installations, staged performances, and instrumental music. [1] Her practice involves the use of both electronic and acoustic mediums. Her music is concerned with intonation, textures, intimacy, and nostalgia, and has been described as ‘free of cliches’ (The Guardian) [2] and ‘hauntingly melodic’ (The Stage). [3] She is the first to introduce cantorial music into contemporary opera. [4] [5] She is currently based in London. [6]
Zisser was raised in an ultra-orthodox background. The fourth of five siblings, she began her classical music education at the age of six, playing piano. She went on to study composition at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, before moving to London to study at the Royal College of Music with Mark-Anthony Turnage where she won the Hurlston & Cobbett Prize. [7] [8] She completed her doctorate at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama [9]
Between 2015 and 2018, Na'ama Zisser was the doctoral composer in residence at the Royal Opera House and made her debut with the opera company with Mamzer/Bastard in the 2018 season. [8] [10] [4] The newly commissioned opera was the first to feature and reference Orthodox-Jewish Cantorial music with a role written for a Cantor. Directed by Jay Scheib and conducted by Jessica Cottis, the opera premiered at the Hackney Empire to sold-out shows. [11]
Na’ama Zisser has been commissioned by and worked with such ensembles and organisations as: London Symphony Orchestra, [12] London Contemporary Orchestra, [13] London Sinfonietta, [14] Aurora Orchestra, [15] CHROMA ensemble, [16] [17] Royal Opera House, [1] National Opera Studio, [18] Tête à Tête, [19] Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, [20] Israeli Contemporary Players [21] and Ujazdowski Centre for Contemporary Art.
She has held residencies and fellowships with Sound & Music, [22] East London Dance, [23] Britten–Pears Artist Programme, Classical Next fellowship [24] Rabbit Island Foundation & Rozsa Centre for Performing Arts, [25] [26] and LSO Soundhub residency, where she composed a piece for chamber ensemble, live visuals and karaoke singers. [27] Her work has been supported by the Arts Council, Jerwood Arts [28] and PRS, [24] as well as broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and online radio station NTS. [29] [19] [30] Zisser's music has been performed internationally across Europe, America and Israel. [31] [32] [33] [34]
In 2022, Zisser scored the first season of BBC radio 4's new horror audio anthology, LUSUS, which starred Ncuti Gatwa, Alistair Petrie and Morfydd Clark. [29]
The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's Hall Orchestra because of a new rule requiring players to give the orchestra their exclusive services. The LSO itself later introduced a similar rule for its members. From the outset the LSO was organised on co-operative lines, with all players sharing the profits at the end of each season. This practice continued for the orchestra's first four decades.
Stuart Oliver Knussen was a British composer of contemporary classical music and conductor. Among the most influential British composers of his generation, his relatively few compositions are "rooted in 20th-century modernism, [but] beholden to no school but his own"
Thomas Joseph Edmund Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor. Five compositions by Adès received votes in the 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000: The Tempest (2004), Violin Concerto (2005), Tevot (2007), In Seven Days (2008), and Polaris (2010).
Colin Matthews, OBE is an English composer of contemporary classical music. Noted for his large-scale orchestral compositions, Matthews is also a prolific arranger of other composer's music, including works by Berlioz, Britten, Dowland, Mahler, Purcell and Schubert. Other arrangements include orchestrations of all Debussy's 24 Préludes, both books of Debussy's Images, and two movements—Oiseaux tristes and La vallée des cloches—from Ravel's Miroirs. Having received a doctorate from University of Sussex on the works of Mahler, from 1964–1975 Matthews worked with his brother David Matthews and musicologist Deryck Cooke on completing a performance version of Mahler's Tenth Symphony.
Elizabeth Jolas is a Franco-American composer.
Eric Crees was appointed Principal Trombone of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (London) in 2000. Before that he spent twenty-seven years at the London Symphony Orchestra, twenty as Co-Principal Trombone. He is also a noted brass conductor, composer, arranger and teacher.
Robert Saxton is a British composer.
Philip Cashian is an English composer. He is the head of composition at the Royal Academy of Music.
David Bruce is a British composer and a YouTuber.
Jessica Cottis is an Australian-British conductor. She is currently artistic director and chief conductor of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra.
Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian is a British composer, singer, and harper. She is considered one of today's leading emerging composers.
Shirley Joy Thompson is an English composer, conductor, and violinist of Jamaican descent. Her output as a composer encompasses symphonies, ballets, operas, concertos, and other works for ensembles, as well as music for TV, film, and theatre. Her New Nation Rising, A 21st Century Symphony was composed in 2002 and debuted in 2004. Also an academic, she is currently Professor of Music at the University of Westminster. In the 2019 New Year Honours she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to Music.
Francisco Coll is a Spanish composer.
Tête à Tête is an opera company based in Cornwall that currently operates in Cornwall, London and North-East England. Its primary mission is to reach new audiences, support artists' development, and to extend the boundaries of traditional opera.
Charlotte Bray is a British composer. She was championed by the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London Sinfonietta and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, BBC Symphony Orchestra. Her music has been performed by many notable conductors such as: Sir Mark Elder, Oliver Knussen, Daniel Harding, and Jac van Steen.
Stephen McNeff is an Irish composer, best known for his work in contemporary theatre and opera.
Martin Suckling is a British composer. He is also a violinist and teacher.
Robin Haigh is an Irish/British composer of contemporary classical music.
Grace-Evangeline Mason is a British composer of contemporary classical music.
Daniel Fardon is a British composer of contemporary classical music.