Marissa Deitz (b. 1990) is a composer and performer located in Oakland, CA. She has performed internationally as a cellist, vocalist, guitarist, improviser, and electronic musician. Her songwriting project Sucker Crush offers confessional and narrative lyrics, and oscillates between delicate folk fingerpicking, beachy indie-pop, and haunting soundscape. Deitz currently plays cello and sings in the band Fieldress, and is a member of chicken-themed noise duo Fowl Figures. Deitz is also a soloist and soprano section leader with the Free Key Choir, Oakland’s premiere 100-voice DIY choir led by Derek Sup, which premiered Deitz’s choral work “Well’s Gone Dry” during their 2023 season.
Marissa also facilitates a music-writing accountability community called Music Every Week, which supports songwriters with weekly prompts, community discussions, peer-to-peer skills workshops, and other shared resources. Music Every Week has generated over 6000 new songs since its start in 2019, and remains a thriving international community of mutual support.
Other recent projects include a 2025 release of the EP Echoqualia under her project Sucker Crush, a 2024 world premiere of her five-movement string quartet 2024 by the Town Quartet, the simultaneous release of two albums as Tuckamore (A Marble Cradled in a Garden Glove and the false plateau we took for infinity), a West Coast tour with Madeline Kenney (providing synth and vocals), a Europe tour with Noah Kite (playing cello), and the premier of new works for voices and strings at the September 2023 Glenview Classical Series composers showcase. Deitz was also honored to be a member of the October 2023 artist residency cohort at the Winslow House Project in Vallejo, CA.
Deitz’s work thrives at the intersections of songwriting, experimental electronic music, and contemporary classical composition. Deitz aims to disrupt the exclusionary practices of contemporary classical music culture while harnessing its experimentalism and technical excellence.
Deitz holds an MFA in Electronic Music & Recording Media at Mills College, having studied with James Fei, Fred Frith and Pauline Oliveros. She also holds a BM in Music Composition from Columbia College Chicago, studying under composers Drew Baker, Kenn Kumpf, and Marcos Balter. As a cellist, she has studied privately with Joan Jeanrenaud (Kronos Quartet), Nancy Ives (Principal Cellist, Oregon Symphony), and Chris Wild (Ensemble Dal Niente).
Recent projects include a world premier of her choral work “Well’s Gone Dry” performed by Free Key Choir in June and December of 2023, inclusion of her track “Hold the Line” on the Fountain Series compilation mixtape, and releasing Sucker Crush’s third EP, Echoqualia. Earlier projects include a national tour and the release of the EP Middle Mattress Chasm as Sucker Crush, the release of EP I fell down naked a cold river caught me as Tuckamore with songwriter/engineer Adam Hirsch, vocal and cello performance with the Glenview Classical Series, durational performance in Ragnar Kjartansson’s Romantic Songs of the Patriarchy in both the Guggenheim museum in New York and at the Womens Center in San Francisco, guitar improvisation for the SFMOMA Sountracks Exhibit by Chris Kallmyer and Mark Allen, and original music for the critically acclaimed indie games Before the Green Moon (2023), Little Party (2016), River Bones (2017) and 4EVER TRANSIT AUTHORITY (2018). Composition commissions include pieces for cellist Bryan Hayslett, and Ryan Muncy & Amanda DeBoer Bartlett of chicago-based Ensemble Dal Niente. Past projects include the founding of indie tape label Other Coast, the release of two albums with acoustic chamber pop group Wooden Rings, the release of From Another Room (2014), In Motion (2015), and Planes (2015), as avant-pop duo The Vale, Immediacy (2018) by Yoko OK, and providing arrangements and studio recordings on countless albums for other artists.
Marissa Deitz 