Bergen International Festival: Luna Composition Lab

The next generation of female composers from an American talent factory.

This year’s Festival composer, Missy Mazzoli, was involved in 2016 with the inception of the mentoring programme Luna Composition Lab along with Ellen Reid and the Kaufman Music Center in New York. The programme, directed at young composers who are female, non-binary or gender nonconforming, aims to lower the threshold for these groups to commit to a career in composing, where they are under-represented. Each year a handful of American teenagers are selected and paired with an established female, non-binary or gender nonconforming composer. In the course of the year the participants develop their own compositions under the guidance of their mentors, and the season culminates in a weeklong festival in New York City, including world premiere performances of their works.