FRANCESCA GAZA

Francesca Gaza (1995) is an Italian/German singer, composer and arranger with Romanian roots based in Basel, Switzerland. 

Wide-ranging in musical influences, her most recent commissions include a composition for the Solothurner Singknaben (Boys Chorus of Solothurn) and the Cantus Firmus Consort Baroque Orchestra which was premiered together with Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in December 2022, a work for mezzo-soprano and prepared piano hänge ich, zwischen Zeiten for Duo Blickwechsel, as well as an arrangement of a Ukrainian carol for the MIT Wind Ensemble and the Groton Hill Youth Choir Boston. Her latest commissions include a new work for the baroque ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro, as well as a new piece for Ensemble Phoenix Basel which will be premiered jointly with Edgar Varèses ‘Octandre’. Her latest composition cycle for lightly amplified choir, written for the choir PourChoeur, will be premiered in April 2025. She was chosen by the contemporary Ensemble Proton Bern to be the next participant in Proton Werk 2026/27. Her works gracefully combine different musical influences, skillfully merging opposing elements into a cohesive whole.

Gaza’s scores offer an intricate tapestry of imagination and color. A singer, pianist, and composer with an acute sense of orchestration, she crafts music that is uniquely her own. While echoes of Stravinsky, St. Vincent, Joni Mitchell, Saariaho, Gesualdo, and Schnittke may flicker through her work, they are absorbed and reshaped into something wholly original.

As a performer, bandleader and sidewoman she is working extensively in jazz-, antique-, pop-, contemporary-classical and experimental music and has released three albums under her name: Sfiorire (2022, Tuk Music), Kugelförmigkeit (2021, Whales Records) and Lilac for People (2019, Auand Records).

Since 2023 she is the conductor of the Basel Jazz Orchestra, with whom she performs monthly in the Bird’s Eye Jazz Club, and with whom they commission arrangers and composers to write and collaborate with on a week- to-months-project basis.

With her ensemble Kugelförmigkeit, which unites 11-14 baroque, renaissance and jazz instrumentalists, and won the first prize in the competition ‘Fraumünsterhof’ with her piece ‘Isoritmo/ Alice’s Fall’ for the jubilee of the 50 years women’s voting rights, and performed with her ensemble in the Art Installation on the Münsterhof in Zurich. The Ensemble was commissioned for a second new work by the Apples & Olives Festival in Zurich under the direction of pianist Nik Bärtsch and American composer Judd Greenstein. This initiated a collaboration between Francesca Gaza and composer and violinist Helena Winkelman, who have then written and co-performed a new work that was presented at the UNESCO World Heritage ‘Müstair’ Monastery in July 2022. In October 2024 they recorded their 2nd Album in a live-recording by the swiss national Radio SRF and toured through 4 swiss cities with their new program ‘IIte Zeit’.

From 2016-2023 she lead her main project Lilac for People, an Italian octet that released 2 albums in which she lives out her fondness for art-pop, jazz and eccentric songs, which she embellishes with refined arrangements with influences from rock, electronics and classical music. Lilac for People’s second album, her latest album release, was published in June 2022 on Paolo Fresu’s label Tuk Music. She continues to perform the music from the album Sfiorire in Trio with drummer Mattia Galeotti and bassist Nadav Erlich.

Her collaborations as a singer and pianist see her involved with Brooklyn-based Drummer and Composer Chase Kuesel’s album Space Between (Ears and Eyes Records, 2020) and with Italian pianist Francesco Orio’s new Trio Album Os, as well as his project Vox Organalis. Other collaborations see her involved with the Basel-based quintet Katom, being her most recent involvement as a side-woman with whom she is working on their Album ‘KATOM’, published in 2023 by Hout Records. She has been featured as well in acclaimed Catalan jazz trumpet player Oscar La Torre’s new album A Pathway to Become, Joan Perez-Villegars Album ‘blausalvatge’ as well as Zurich-born bassist and singer Pino Zortea’s Duo project ‘bicycle fantasies’.

She was awarded the second prize of the Ensemble Phoenix Composition Competition ‘Trabant’ in 2023, as well as the first prize in the Fraumünster Kompositionswettbewerb in Zurich in 2021, together with the National Italian Jazz Composition Prize in 2017, the 1^st prize of the Jazzalguer Festival led by Paolo Fresu in 2018, the Umbria Jazz Competition Prize and a Berklee College of Music Summer Program Scholarship in 2013. She is a part of both Basel’s and Florence’s vibrant art scene, and regularly performs and collaborates with musicians and artists from across Europe. 

Francesca Gaza’s writing is emblematic of an emerging generation and a circle of composers and performers who have made it their trademark to transcend traditional genre distinctions. 

Francesca has graduated with honours from the M.A. in Composition at the Musikakademie Jazzcampus Basel with a Minor in the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, mentored by Guillermo Klein, Lisette Spinnler, Jorge Rossy, Luciana Souza, Norma Winstone, and Patrik Zosso, as well as Johannes Menke, Florian Vogt and Ulrike Hofbauer amongst others. She finished her Bachelor of Arts in Music and Jazz Vocals in 2017 at the Siena Jazz University in Italy with magna cum laude under the guidance of acclaimed singer Diana Torto, pianist Stefano Battaglia and bassist Daniele Camarda. She recently concluded her second Master studies in sound design, production, composition and baroque singing.

Short Bio:

Francesca Gaza (1995) is a German-Italian composer, singer, and pianist whose work explores the boundaries between new music, jazz, and early music. Based in Basel, she has developed a distinctive approach that often blends contemporary music with historical instruments. Her compositions are characterized by kaleidoscopic structures, unexpected sounds, and a constant curiosity to push musical and creative boundaries. She was awarded second prize in the 2023 Ensemble Phoenix Basel composition competition, and her recent commissions include works for the Solothurner Singknaben, the Baroque orchestra Il Pomo d’Oro, and the Catalan brass ensemble Kambrass Quintet. Her latest works, including a half-hour long piece for lightly amplified choir, Post Sappho, for the Basel choir PourChoeur, as well as compositions for Arciorgano and Cornetto, a piano duo, and the Renaissance ensemble Hourglass, will premiere in the 2025/26 season. For the 2026/27 season, she has been selected by Ensemble Proton Bern to compose a new work as part of their Protonwerk program. In her works, she elegantly combines various musical influences, merging contrasting elements into a cohesive whole. As a conductor, she has led the Basel Jazz Orchestra since 2023, which regularly performs at the Birds Eye Jazz Club and commissions new works from composers and arrangers. Francesca leads several projects as a singer and pianist, including her ensemble Kugelförmigkeit, which blends Baroque music with experimental jazz and new music. Her album Kugelförmigkeit (2021) received widespread recognition, including being named “Album of the Year” by Wiener Zeitung. In October 2024, the ensemble, with the support of SRF, recorded a live performance of an entirely new program titled Kugelförmigkeit – IIte Zeit, which will be released later this year.

With her quartet aminth, founded in 2023, Francesca combines experimental sounds and instruments from folk, jazz, and Renaissance traditions with a singer-songwriter approach. The quartet performs at various festivals across Europe, and their fifth album is planned for recording in late 2026/2027.