Eliza Bagg

BIOGRAPHY

SHORT BIO

Eliza Bagg is an experimental vocalist and composer. She is known for her “ethereal” aesthetic (The New York Times) and “gossamer” singing (The New Yorker), along with her unique performance and improvisational practice. Frequently developing new work in collaboration with composers like Ted Hearne, Ellen Reid, Gabriel Kahane, Caroline Shaw, Meredith Monk, and John Zorn, Bagg has performed as a soloist around the globe from the Concertgebouw to Carnegie Hall. She has sung operatic roles in venues from the Komische Oper Berlin to the Prototype Festival, is a member of Roomful of Teeth, and has soloed with the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics. Bagg’s compositional work combines virtuosic singing, mainstream pop aesthetics, and historically informed performance with electronic processing to explore the “valley between authenticity and artifice” (The Guardian). She has been in residence as a composer at Yaddo and Avaloch Farm, and has had theatrical works presented by REDCAT New Original Works Festival and Wild Up’s Endless Season. She has performed her innovative work for processed voice at institutions such as Big Ears Festival, Birds of Paradise Festival, Musica Festival Strasbourg, De Doelen, and the Bemis Center. Dubbed an “electro-pop alien” by NPR, Bagg has released three solo albums and tours globally under the artist name Lisel.

LONG BIO

Eliza Bagg is a Los Angeles based experimental musician, performing as a vocalist in contemporary opera along with composing and producing her own work. She has collaborated with prominent avant-garde artists, from performing in Meredith Monk’s Atlas with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (dir. Yuval Sharon) to touring regularly as a member of Roomful of Teeth, playing the role of Ape in Michael Gordon’s Acquanetta (dir. Daniel Fish), or singing new music by John Zorn. She has sung work by Ellen Reid as a soloist at the Concertgebouw and with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, and LA Philharmonic, has performed and recorded with the Attacca String Quartet, and she worked collaboratively with Ted Hearne to perform his theatrical song cycle Dorothea at Carnegie Hall. Her singing has been called “ethereal” and “luminous” by The New York Times and “gossamer” by The New Yorker.

Bagg is known for her unique performance and improvisational practice, and frequently develops new work in close collaboration with composers, including David Lang, Caroline Shaw, Julia Wolfe, Gabriel Kahane, Ellen Reid, Ted Hearne, and John Zorn. She has  performed many roles in new operas such as Ted Hearne’s over and over vorbei nicht vorbei at the Komische Oper Berlin (2024), Dylan Mattingly’s Stranger Love with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (2023), Du Yun’s Angel’s Bone at Renaissance Opera (2022), Michael Gordon’s Acquanetta at the Prototype Festival and Bard Summerscape (2018, 2019), Yaz Lancaster’s Paper Tiger with Opera Philadelphia (2023), Ash Fure’s Hive Rise with The Industry (2021), and Wayne Shorter and esperanza spalding’s Iphigenia at Cal Performances (2022). 

Performance highlights of  the ‘24-’25 season include performing Ted Hearne’s The Source at Festival Musica Strasbourg and soloing with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. 

Bagg’s compositional work is grounded in the human voice mediated by technology and combines virtuosic singing and historical performance with electronic processing, exploring the “valley between authenticity and artifice” (The Guardian). This season, she will participate in composition residencies at Yaddo and Avaloch Farm, and will create and perform “7 Early Songs,” an experimental opera presented as part of REDCAT’s NOW Festival. She also co-created, composed, and performed in an experimental opera-theatre piece, “Expostulation(s) of Mary”, presented as part of Wild Up’s Endless Season in 2023. 

Dubbed an “electro-pop alien” (NPR), her recently critically acclaimed album Patterns For Auto-tuned Voices And Delay (Ba Da Bing Records, 2023) combines medieval and minimalist vocal styles and idioms with vocal effects, creating "gleaming electro-hymns" (Uncut Magazine). She has released several albums on Ba Da Bing Records and Luminelle Records, and has presented her own work at Big Ears Festival, Birds of Paradise Festival, and the Bemis Center, among others. This October, she will release an avant-pop album called “The Vanishing Point.”

Bagg has sung on multiple GRAMMY-winning and nominated albums including Roomful of Teeth’s Rough Magic, and Wild Up’s Julius Eastman compendiums, and performed as a soloist with major symphonies including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the North Carolina Symphony, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and has performed at venues around the world from the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and the Concertgebouw to Big Ears Festival and De Doelen.

She has worked closely on chamber music projects with prominent instrumentalists and ensembles including the Attacca String Quartet, Sandbox Percussion, Claire Chase, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Wild Up, and A Far Cry. She has also collaborated with artists outside of the classical world, like singing on Vampire Weekend’s new album “Only God Was Above Us,” and performing in a series of live videos with Lorde recorded at Electric Lady Studios. Bagg has also sung on scores for multiple television shows, including prominent features in Nico Muhly’s score for Pachinko.

Bagg graduated in 2012 with a BA from Yale University. She was born and raised in Durham, North Carolina where she spent most of her time playing violin and studying modern dance.