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 can be found in most of their works. As violinist and singer, Mx. Swift is no stranger to most of the world’s greatest stages including Royal Albert Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Carnegie Hall, Müpa Budapest, and David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall and Damrosch Park at Lincoln Center in New York City. 

As a composer, Swift’s works include commissions by The Los Angeles Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, The Kronos Quartet and the International Contemporary Ensemble. As an educator, Swift has taught workshops in free improvisation and “conduction” (conducted improvisation) on six continents and is a performing member and teaching artist with the GRAMMY-award winning Silkroad Ensemble. 

Mazz is a 2021 United States Artist, and 2019 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, continually creating orchestral compositions that involve Conduction, small ensemble works that include improvisation, 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.