Lisa Mezzacappa's music lives in the intersection of improvisation and composition. Her projects as a doublebassist, composer, curator and collaborator explore new contexts for developing interactive musical languages, always with the goal of bringing these sounds to wider audiences. She has studied with Michael Formanek, Henry Threadgill and Steve Coleman, and has performed and workshopped with the Sun Ra Arkestra, Meredith Monk, Bob Moses, Myra Melford, Art Baron, Terry Riley and David Murray, among others. She was artist-in-residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts (2006) and the Banff International Jazz Workshop (2000), holds an MA in ethnomusicology from UC Berkeley (2003), and a BA in music from the University of Virginia (1997). She is composer-in-residence at Djerassi Resident Artists Program in fall 2008. Lisa has been awarded grants from American Composers Forum, the City of Oakland and Meet the Composer. She currently performs in nearly a dozen original jazz, pop and chamber ensembles in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she lives.
