Christopher Anderson-Bazzoli

250-Word Biography

Christopher Anderson-Bazzoli’s innovative compositions for the concert stage, deeply felt scores for studio and independent films, and skilled musical direction for artists across the pop music spectrum have earned him a reputation as a musician of collaborative spirit and broad vision. As Gramophone observed, “Anderson-Bazzoli admirably doesn’t follow in anyone’s footsteps.”

Opera News selected the world-premiere recording of Continent’s End, Anderson-Bazzoli’s song cycle on visionary California poet Robinson Jeffers, as a “Critic’s Choice,” calling it “a fine contribution to the art song canon, one that should prove widely appealing for listeners.” Nominated for an Emmy Award at age twenty-one, Anderson-Bazzoli has composed scores for twenty feature and short films, including the Venezuelan thriller Ellipsis (Fox) and the technology documentary Revolution OS (7th Art). He received a Sundance Composer Fellowship and has served as a copyist or orchestrator on more than three hundred films and television shows, including Spider-Man: Brand New Day (Marvel/Sony), Encanto (Disney), and Whalefall (Fox). As a conductor, he has worked with recording artists Michael Bublé, Dr. Dre, Christina Aguilera, and She & Him (Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward), among others.

Growing up in Pacific Grove, California, Anderson-Bazzoli began playing the tuba at age eleven and went on to earn an M.A. in music composition from UCLA. In 2022, he relocated from Los Angeles to Carmel, where he serves as musicologist for the Monterey Symphony, providing program notes and lectures. He lives with his wife, Donna Eshelman, a neuromuscular therapist and choreographer.

500-WORD BIOGRAPHY

Anderson-Bazzoli’s concert music encompasses a diverse range of aesthetics—from tightly structured, motor-rhythmic process music to expressive, freely improvised art songs—embracing tonal and nontonal elements. His most recent work is Carmel Point, an elemental a cappella choral setting of visionary California poet Robinson Jeffers. I Cantori di Carmel—an ensemble in which Anderson-Bazzoli also performs as a bass—premiered the work as part of “Songs After Sunset” at Carmel Mission in September 2026. Opera News selected the world-premiere recording of Continent’s End, Anderson-Bazzoli’s song cycle on the poetry of Jeffers, as a “Critic’s Choice,” calling it “a fine contribution to the art song canon, one that should prove widely appealing for listeners.” Gramophone wrote that the music “arrives like a bolt out of the blue…epic qualities abound.” Continent’s End is available on the Delos label.

A former student of film-scoring masters Henry Mancini and David Raksin, Anderson-Bazzoli was nominated for an Emmy Award at age twenty-one for his first professional film score, A Year to Remember, for CBS News. Variety described the feature documentary Revolution OS as coming “complete with a nice soundtrack, unusual for this kind of documentary.” He has also composed innovative and potent scores for the Venezuelan thriller Ellipsis, the award-winning Swedish short Without Snow, and The Wind and the Water—a collaborative feature by Vero Bollow and Panama’s Igar Yala Collective that premiered to acclaim at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Anderson-Bazzoli received a Sundance Composer Fellowship and has served as a copyist or orchestrator on more than three hundred films and television shows, among them Spider-Man: Brand New Day (Marvel/Sony), Encanto (Disney), and Whalefall (Fox).

As a conductor and arranger, Anderson-Bazzoli has worked with recording artists including Michael Bublé, Dr. Dre, Christina Aguilera, the Jonas Brothers, and M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel of She & Him. He served as co-arranger for legendary Spinal Tap bassist Derek Smalls (a.k.a. Harry Shearer), whose solo album Smalls Change featured an all-star band and an eighty-piece orchestra. For the accompanying Lukewarm Water Live tour, Anderson-Bazzoli conducted the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra at the Saenger Theatre in New Orleans and the Hollywood Chamber Orchestra at the Wiltern in Los Angeles.

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