Singer- Composer Misha Penton

Misha Penton is a singer-composer, recording artist, and music video filmmaker. She invents and performs solo and collaborative new music and media works and her projects are multi-form: live performances, audio projects, video works, site-specific installations, and writings. Her music is a blend of 21st century art song and chamber electronica that embraces unconventional vocal techniques and neo-operatic vocality. Her work inhabits an immersive dreamworld where poetry comes alive in the movement of sound through the voice and body, creating a language that celebrates beautiful things unseen, unnoticed, and ephemeral. She draws inspiration from mythology, fairytale, and literature of the Western canon, from sacred story, and the cycle of the seasons. Her theoretical frame includes discourses surrounding the sonorous expressivity of poetic language, and beauty as a force of resistance in its capacity for decentering the self and fostering connection.

Misha has conceptualized, produced, and directed over 16 original evening-length performance works and many music media and video projects. Her recent projects include a residency with her ensemble Misha Penton Collective for Sculpture Month Houston; the release of her 3-music video EP, Blessings of the Moon celebrating the magnificent transformative feminine; the music video Last Cicada, funded in part by the Houston Arts Alliance and the Mayor’s Office for Cultural Affairs; and the music video Earthshine in celebration of the winter solstice with a concert release party in partnership with Sawyer Yards Houston. 

Misha’s site-specific works include Threshold, an experimental ensemble performance created for the cavernous and iconic Silos at Sawyer Yards in Houston; Anecdote of the Spirit, a contemplative work for the Rothko Chapel; Siren on the Sabine for the Menil Collection; and The Medusa Project, a multi-version monodrama for voice and media comprised of films, writings, and installations at Bath Spa University, UK. She has released a series of mini music video Micro Operas including (micro)Requiem inspired by Mozart’s unfinished Requiem in D minor and Creation Stories, based on sacred cosmogony texts. Misha made her directorial debut with Houston Grand Opera directing a web opera in HGO’s series Star Cross’d; has enjoyed artist residencies at The Juilliard School, Concordia University Montreal, University of Houston, Sam Houston State University, Texas A&M College Station, and Lone Star College Montgomery, Texas; and holds a PhD in Music & Performance awarded by Bath Spa University, UK. Upcoming projects include continued music media offerings and a live performance work for Sculpture Month Houston 2025.  mishapenton.com