Mazz Swift / Ava Mendoza

Mazz Swift

Mazz Swift is a composer, conductor, singer, bandleader, educator, and Juilliard-trained violinist. Improvisation is a throughline in their practice across genres and instrumental configurations, and as such, can be found in most of their works.

Mazz is a 2021 United States Artist, and 2019 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, continually creating orchestral compositions that involve Conduction, and solo works that are centered around protest and freedom songs, spirituals, and the Ghanaian concept of ‘Sankofa’: looking back to learn how to move forward. They are also a member of the renowned Silkroad Ensemble, the collaborative trio HEAR in NOW, and the various Peter Evans ensembles.

As violinist and singer, Mx. Swift has performed on many of the world’s greatest stages including Royal Albert Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Müpa Budapest, and David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall and Damrosch Park at Lincoln Center in New York City. As composer, Swift’s works include commissions by The Los Angeles Philharmonic, Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity, and the Blaffer Foundation. As an educator, Swift has performed and taught workshops in free improvisation and “conduction” (conducted improvisation) on six continents and is a performing member and teaching artist with the acclaimed Silkroad Ensemble. They are also a Carnegie Hall teaching artist, where they write and record lullabies with incarcerated mothers and mothers-to-be at Rikers Island, and coaches the incarcerated men at Sing Sing Penitentiary on string studies and composition.
 

Ava Mendoza

Ava Mendoza is a Brooklyn-based guitarist, singer, songwriter and composer. Born in 1983, she started performing her own music, and as a sidewoman and collaborator in many different projects, as soon as she was legally allowed into venues. As a guitarist, Mendoza has received acclaim for her technique and viscerality. Her most ongoing work is as leader of art rock band Unnatural Ways, and as a solo performer of her own music and works by contemporary composers. In any context she is committed to bringing expressivity, energy and a wide sonic range to the music. Mendoza has toured throughout the U.S. and Europe and recorded/performed with musicians including Carla Bozulich, Malcolm Mooney (CAN), Steve Shelley, Mike Watt, Adele Bertei, Mick Barr, William Hooker, Nels Cline, Matana Roberts, John Zorn, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Fred Frith, William Parker, Hamid Drake, Object Collection (Travis Just), ROVA, Negativland, the Violent Femmes, and members of Caroliner. She has received composition commissions from film distributor Kino Lorber, new music duo The Living Earth Show, the Jazz Coalition, and John Zorn’s Stone Commissioning Series at National Sawdust. Recordings are available on labels Tzadik, Astral Spirits, SGG, Pyroclastic, Clean Feed, Resipiscent, and New Atlantis.