Eliza Bagg

BIOGRAPHY

SHORT BIO

Eliza Bagg is an experimental vocalist and composer. She is known for her “ethereal” aesthetic (New York Times), “luminous sound” (New York Times) and “gossamer” singing (New Yorker), along with a unique performance and improvisational practice. Bagg has performed as a soloist around the globe, with a wide-ranging career that includes chamber music at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, motets by John Zorn at Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Meredith Monk’s Atlas with the LA Philharmonic, and premieres by Ted Hearne at Carnegie Hall and Chaya Czernowin at Walt Disney Concert Hall. She has sung lead roles in new operas with the Komische Oper Berlin, Philadelphia Opera, The Industry, and the Prototype Festival, and is a member of GRAMMY-winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth.

Bagg is a frequent guest soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and has sung as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, and North Carolina Symphony. She has collaborated closely with musicians and ensembles such as Nico Muhly, Pekka Kuusisto, Attacca String Quartet, Claire Chase, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Lorelei Ensemble, Nadia Sirota, Sofia Jernberg, Wild Up, and A Far Cry, among many others. Frequently developing and performing new work by composers like Ted Hearne, Ellen Reid, Angelica Négron, Caroline Shaw, Gabriel Kahane, and John Zorn, Bagg is a renowned collaborator and creative contributor.

Bagg’s compositional work integrates mainstream, contemporary aesthetics with classical languages, historical forms, and an avant-garde sensibility, often using pop production and electronic processing to explore the “valley between authenticity and artifice” (The Guardian). Dubbed an “electro-pop alien” by NPR, Bagg tours globally under the artist name Lisel and has released three solo albums, including the "chrome-tinted harmonies...[and] intricate latticeworks" (Bandcamp Daily) of her critically acclaimed piece Patterns For Auto-Tuned Voices And Delay. She has been in residence as a composer at Yaddo and Avaloch Farm, and has created new opera-theatre performances for REDCAT's New Original Works Festival and Wild Up’s Endless Season. She has performed her innovative work for processed voice at institutions such as Lincoln Center, Big Ears Festival, Birds of Paradise Festival, Musica Festival Strasbourg, De Doelen, Public Records, and the Bemis Center, among others.

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 The Source at Festival Musica Strasbourg (2024), Hearne’s over and over vorbei nicht vorbei at the Komische Oper Berlin (2024) and Deutschen Nationaltheater Weimar (2025), 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 (2018) and Bard Summerscape (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). 

Bagg’s compositional work integrates mainstream, contemporary aesthetic practices with classical forms and historical languages, using pop aesthetics and electronic processing to explore the “valley between authenticity and artifice” (The Guardian). She has participated in composition residencies at Yaddo and Avaloch Farm, and created and performed “7 Early Songs,” an experimental opera presented as part of REDCAT’s NOW Festival (2024). 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 Lincoln Center, Big Ears Festival, Birds of Paradise Festival, and the Bemis Center, among others.

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 Nico Muhly, Pekka Kuusisto, Lorelei Ensemble, Nadia Sirota, Sofia Jernberg, 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.