We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Isabella Bonzani a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Isabella, appreciate you joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I think there were several little moments as I grew up that led me to pursue music. I can say for sure that Interstellar sparked my love for film. I come from a big movie family, but something about Interstellar just unlocked something in me. At the time the movie came out I was obsessed with space, so I was already crazy about the movie. But it was the first time I started paying attention to the score. Something about Hans Zimmer’s score just resonated so much with me, and it still does ten years later.

Another moment I remember really impacting me was when I was in high school. Our band had a concert purely dedicated to film music, and it is still probably one of my favorite concerts to date. I remember being so excited for every rehearsal and every show, I didn’t want it to end! There is something so powerful about film music that I started listening to it in my free time. As I was applying for colleges, that’s when I realized that I only wanted to study music. I was still passionate about science, specifically space, but the lifestyle of that career didn’t suit me. I had been playing instruments for so long, I just felt that I had to keep pursuing it. It was a part of me that I didn’t want to lose. Music made me so happy, and I wasn’t scared about the uncertainty of that career. I just felt it had to work out because I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

Isabella, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a composer and multi-instrumentalist from Fairfield, CA. I started playing music at a young age, starting with saxophone and quickly learning clarinet soon after. I had always played in multiple genres growing up, from orchestra, to jazz band, to singing in musical theater. In high school I realized I was very passionate about film music, and decided I would work towards being a session musician playing on film scores. I continued playing and eventually started studying Instrumental Performance in the Music Industry Program at Loyola University, New Orleans. I studied jazz on saxophone and classical music on clarinet, but often crossed genres. I worked on diversity in my playing, focusing on adaptability since that is one of the most important aspects of being a session musician.

The end of my sophomore year was when I took a class on film scoring and fell in love with composition. The story telling aspect was so compelling to me, especially as a long time movie fan. I then started studying composition my junior year, and I am now pursuing a Master’s Degree in Music Theory and Composition: Screen Scoring at NYU Steinhardt. My style of composition is definitely contemporary, some would say avant-garde. I believe that is partially due to having never been classically trained in composition. I had to almost go back and relearn the basics, so I knew which rules I was breaking. When I began writing, I immediately leaned towards electronic, ambient music. When I write with orchestral instruments, I love manipulating the sound through sound design techniques. I’m always curious about how I can push the boundaries of standard instruments, and I think this is what makes my sound as a composer unique. I absolutely love working in the sci-fi/horror field, since that’s where I feel I have the most freedom to be more contemporary. That is not to say I don’t love working in other genres – the great thing about being a film composer is that you can work in a wide range of genres!

At this point, I have scored numerous student and independent films, and have dipped my toe into the world of video game scoring. I love what I do because it is such a diverse field. I get to meet so many people, work on so many unique projects, and just help their visions come to life.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Perfection does not exist. When I was first told this by one of my teachers in college, I was really thrown off. How can perfection not exist? It may be difficult, sure, but it’s possible! I couldn’t have been more wrong, and it took me a long time to see that. The concept of perfection weighed on me so much when I was primarily a performer. Don’t miss a note, stay in tune, fast air, proper support. Perfection was always the goal, but when I look back, it was never achieved.

Of course, that perfectionist mindset continued when I began studying composition. There was a piece I was working on where I kept finding things to fix. No this note isn’t right, maybe this would work better. I can delete this part. What if I add a new instrument? My teacher eventually told me I have to stop working on that piece. I kept saying no, I can do this. Just one more tweak! But he said something that still resonates with me to this day. “Art is never finished, it is simply abandoned.” I had to think about that for a moment, and then I started to understand what he meant. There is always going to be something we want to fix, something we can do better. We are constantly learning, and because of that, we are always going to want to improve our work. However, if you keep doing that, you will never finish. Sometimes you can go down a rabbit hole of fixing things and end up so far away from your original vision.

Perfection is a myth. It’s dangerous because it can pull you away from your work in ways you don’t realize it. You can spend so much time trying to fix something, it then becomes a form of procrastination from what you should really be working on. Other teachers have told me this over time, and it always just reinforces this idea. Once I embraced it, it was much easier to let go of my music and let it be. It’s much better for me and my music that way.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Since I got into film scoring, I dove into reading about film and the music industry. I started collecting dozens of books, and I have two books that I will always reread because they have so much to take away from them.

The first book I want to mention is called “The Inner Game of Tennis.” This book was recommended to me by one of my teachers from Loyola, and it is one of my absolute favorites. As a performer who dealt with significant performance anxiety, this book was a godsend. It discusses the mental aspects of performance, focusing on the “inner game,” meaning the mental side to performing. It tackles issues every creative deals with such as self-doubt, anxiety, and distractions that keep us from our work. Its use of analogies is brilliant (and ironic, since I am a tennis player), and it gave me a brand new perspective on my creative process. It was honestly life changing.

The second book I would like to mention is called “War of Art.” This book was recommended by one of my music industry professors at Loyola, and man, is it a kick in the pants. It focuses on resistance, something that again, all creatives have experienced. It definitely makes you take a step back and look at your productivity in a new light. It discusses how we can be our most creative selves, and it is nice to read again and become re-inspired.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://isabellabonzani.com
• Instagram: isabella_bonzani
• Linkedin: Isabella Bonzani
• Soundcloud: Isabella Bonzani

Image Credits

January Yucheng Li