Mazz Swift

“4-Piece” - song written for Dr. Laurie Green

-- read poem (by Jacqueline Suskin)

-- read lyrics

Violin/Vox/Freestyle Composition artist Mazz Swift is critically acclaimed as one of America's most talented and versatile performers today and engages audiences worldwide with their signature weaving of composition and improvisation called MazzMuse. Aside from full-time work as a performer, Swift is a composer and educator. Their works include commissions by The University of Delaware, Neues Kabarett (through a Meet-the-Composer grant), The New Harmony Music School & Festival, and the Blaffer Foundation. Several of their pieces for atypical chamber ensemble have been performed live and also replayed on National Public Radio. Mazz has performed and taught workshops on free improvisation on six continents, most notably having traveled to Suriname, Mozambique, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Cameroon, Senegal, Albania, and Siberia as a cultural ambassador at the invitation of the United States Department of State. They are also a teaching artist with Carnegie Hall's “Future Music” and “Lullaby” programs, where they coach an ensemble of talented teens from every corner of NYC, write lullabies with incarcerated mothers and mothers-to-be, and lead professional development sessions for professional symphony orchestra members and their students.

Mazz sits on the artistic board for the Jersey City-based chamber music collective, Con Vivo, and is also a proud performing member of that organization. Two of their compositions are featured on Con Vivo's full-length CD, Modern Dances, one of which is a piece dedicated to the memory of Trayvon Martin and their family entitled "Invisible".