Emily Bezar

San Francisco-based singer and songwriter Emily Bezar draws comparisons to the otherworldly elegance of Tori Amos and Kate Bush, yet she operates as a commanding artist defined by her own intensity and magnetic presence. After classical piano instruction at Stanford University and Oberlin Conservatory, Bezar initially targeted an operatic path, though the pull of rock, jazz, and electronic sounds proved impossible to set aside. Her entry into recording came through the Bay Area group the Potato Eaters, which issued the lone album Wreckless during the mid-'90s. The 1994 release Grandmother's Tea Leaves marked her debut as a solo artist and earned strong notice from independent outlets. Three years afterward came Moon in Grenadine, an album that leaned further into jazz textures.

Bezar’s lasting attraction to the charged fusion of jazz energy and classical roots, shaped by the work of Richard Strauss, Kurt Weill, Joni Mitchell, and Keith Jarrett, found its clearest expression on the 1999 album Four Walls Bending, which appeared in the fall. Beyond her own material, she directs DemiVox Records, an independent label she maintains in Berkley, CA; the company has handled production and engineering for multiple multimedia projects and documentary scores. During the late '90s she also partnered with electronic composer Amy X. Neuburg, another Oberlin alumnus.