WOMEN COMPOSERS 365 DAYS A YEAR

31 JULY 2019

Wednesday, 31 July 2019


AMÉLIE-JULIE CANDEILLE - FRANCE 
BORN 31 JULY

Amélie-Julie Candeille was a French composer, librettist, writer, singer, actress, comedian, and instrumentalist.

Contemporary discussions of her music highlight the supremacy of melody and use of simple harmonies used throughout her works. She composed in the style of Grétry, whom she greatly admired. Her works for keyboard, which she composed for her personal performances, are virtuosic – her surviving musical works include a concerto for keyboard, three keyboard sonatas (some with violin accompaniment), and a duo for piano. Many other works are lost, including additional keyboard sonatas, duos, fantasias and variations. Modern editions of the concerto for keyboard, three arias and the overture from Catherine are available through Hildegard Publishing. 

- Three sonatas for harpsichord, with violin accompaniment.
- Concerto for piano and strings.
- Two great-sonatas for piano, opus 8 (under the name Julie Simons).
- Fantaisie for piano (dedicated to Mme Rivière).
- Nocturne for piano (fantaisie n. 5, Op. 11).

♫ LISTEN

Sonata in G: II. Adagio con espressione by Amélie-Julie Candeille 




CARMELA MACKENNA 
BORN 31 JULY   

Carmela Mackenna Subercaseaux  was a Chilean pianist and composer. Born in Santiago, Chile, to Alberto Mackenna Astorga and Carmela Subercaseaux, she was the great-granddaughter of Chilean hero Juan Mackenna and aunt of composer Alfonso Leng. She studied music theory with Bindo Paoli in Santiago and continued her studies in piano and composition with Conrad Ansorge and Hans Mersmann in Berlin. in 1934 she made her debut as a composer in Berlin with Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.

Carmela showed an early inclination towards creative expression, including painting, writing and music. In 1917, for example, after a piano recital presented by Bindo Paoli’s students, she was lauded in the press for having the “soul of an artist.” Nevertheless, years earlier she had determined that pursuing a career in the arts was inappropriate for someone of her social standing. After brief periods in Great Britain and Uruguay, in 1926 she and her husband settled in Berlin where they lived for a number of years. In addition to her duties as a diplomatic official, while in Berlin Carmela also continued studying the piano with Conrad Ansorge (1862-1930) and began studying composition with Hans Mersmann (1891-1971). While in Europe, the couple separated. Carmela continued in her role as cultural attaché until 1939; later, she visited Paris, Brussels, Cairo and New York. Returning to Santiago, she did not join the active musical life of that city; rather, she fell into an isolation that lasted until her death.
♫ LISTEN

Duo for Cello and PIano by Carmella Mackenna 



30 JULY 2019

Tuesday, 30 July 2019


BETTY ROE - UK  
BORN 30 JULY

Betty Roe was born in North Kensington, London, England. Her father was a fishmonger at the Shepherd's Bush Market, and her mother was a bookkeeper. Roe took piano lessons from the age of six with Madam Dorina and began writing music and arrangements in her teens during World War II when she assisted with choirs at the local church. She studied piano with Fiona Addie, Muriel Dale, and Sadie MacCormack, and cello with Alison Dalrymple at the Royal Academy of Music, but left school in 1947 and took a job as a filing clerk. She continued at the Royal Academy in 1949, studying piano with York Bowen, cello with Alison Dalrymple, and voice with Jean McKenzie-Grieve. She continued her study of singing with Clive Carey, Roy Hickman, Peter van der Stolk, and Margaret Field-Hyde, and studied composition with Lennox Berkeley. In the 1950s she became involved with a drama group where she began writing for musicals. She also worked as a sessions singer with London ensembles.

Roe married John Bishop and had three children. She was Director of Music at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art from 1968–78, and founded Thames Publishing with her husband in 1970.  After his death in 2000 Thames Publishing became a division of William Elkin Music Services.

♫ LISTEN

The Fair Singer bt Betty Roe 




ELISENDA FÁBREGAS - SPAIN
BORN 30 JULY   

Spanish/American composer Elisenda Fábregas has been praised for writing with an “imaginatively colored … idiom” (The New York Times) and for possessing an “individuality [which] shows through in yearning dissonances, quirky juxtapositions of thematic material and a pervasive sensuality not unlike that of her native Barcelona” (San Antonio Express News). Fabregas’s music has been described as “complex and haunting” (The Washington Post) with abundant “expressive long lines and gorgeous lyricism”(NATS Journal), and for having “an emotionally compelling aura” (The New Mexican News) and a “marvelous sense of progression and development” (American Music Teacher Magazine). In occasion of winning the MTNA Shepherd Distinguished Composer Award in the year 2000, the American Teacher Magazine praised Fábregas for writing with a unique perspective comparing her to the “The Man with a Blue Guitar” (1937) in the Wallace Stevens’s poem:“Fabregas is one gifted with a blue guitar. Her tunes are beyond us, yet ourselves. Indeed they are tunes of things exactly as they are.” Fábregas music covers a wide range of states, from “dreamlike images … and illusive rhythms and harmonies that permeate misty settings” [as in the piano solo ‘Hommage a Mozart,‘] to music described as “notable in its sturdy and arresting generative themes” with “motoric, muscular, exciting fast movements” (San Antonio Express News.).

In the last five years, Elisenda has focused her energies on writing for orchestra. Accents Catalans (2016) for orchestra, commissioned by the Bucheon Philharmonic and premiered by maestro Youngmin Park at the Seoul Arts Center Concert Hall as part of the Orchestra Festival at SAC on April 10 of 2016; an additional performance took place at Bucheon’s Citizen Hall in Bucheon, South Korea, on September 30, 2016. Elisenda’s working relationship with the Bucheon Philharmonic continues with a new commission to write an orchestral song cycle, Somnis desperts, based on Catalan poetry by J.V. Foix.
♫ LISTEN

Voces de mi Terra by Elisenda Fábregas



29 JULY 2019

Monday, 29 July 2019


JESSICA CURRY - UK  
BORN 29 JULY

Jessica is an internationally acclaimed BAFTA-winning composer of contemporary classical music and is also co-founder of renowned games company The Chinese Room. Her work has been performed in diverse and high-profile venues such as The Old Vic Tunnels, The Barbican, Sydney Opera House, The Royal Albert Hall, Great Ormond Street Hospital, The Wellcome Trust, MOMI New York, The Royal Opera House, Sage Gateshead and Durham Cathedral. The Washington Post have described her music as “stupendous” and The Guardian praised her “gorgeous orchestral score” for Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture. The Rapture score has been voted in to the Classic FM Hall of Fame for the last two years.

Jessica's music has had extensive airplay on Radio 3 and Classic FM, as well as on radio stations and in concert halls around the world.

Jessica is currently London Oriana Choir’s composer in residence and she’s also been selected for PRSF’s New Music Biennial which is taking place in London’s Southbank and Hull in July 2019.

The recipient of a PRSF Women Make Music grant, Jessica's large scale choral and brass band work, The Durham Hymns, (a collaboration with Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy) premiered at Durham Cathedral.

Jessica was awarded the Outstanding Contribution award at Women in Games in 2018. She was also a finalist in the Hospital Club awards in the Games and Creative Industry categories 2017. 

Jessica also works as a freelance composer and is available for hire on games, film, television and other projects. 

♫ LISTEN

So Let us Melt - Great Friends by Jessica Curry  




SOPHIE MENTER - SWEDEN
BORN 29 JULY   

Sophie Menter was born in Munich, the daughter of cellist Josef Menter and singer Wilhelmine Menter (née Diepold). She studied piano with Siegmund Lebert and later Friedrich Niest. At 15, she played Carl Maria von Weber's Konzertstück for piano and orchestra with Franz Lachner conducting.

Her first concert appearances took her to Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Switzerland, and in 1867 she became acclaimed for her interpretation of Liszt's piano music at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. In Berlin, Menter became acquainted with the famous pianist Carl Tausig; she became a pupil of Liszt in 1869 after studying with Tausig and Hans von Bülow. Between 1872 and 1886 she was married to cellist David Popper, with whom she had a daughter named Celeste. In 1881 she first appeared in England and was awarded honorary membership of the Royal Philharmonic Society two years later. In 1883 she became professor of piano at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory but left in 1886 to continue concertizing.

Because of her popularity, Menter succeeded with music that no other pianist would touch. This included Liszt's First Piano Concerto, which she played in Vienna in 1869, 12 years after its disastrous premiere there. One of her recital specialties was a piece entitled Rhapsodies. This was a composite of three of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies—Nos. 2, 6 and 12—along with fragments from several others. She also composed various pieces for piano, mainly in a brilliant style, yet referred to her own compositional talent as "miserable."
♫ LISTEN

Romance Op. 5 by Sophie Menter 



28 JULY 2019

Sunday, 28 July 2019


LARA POE  -  FINLAND/USA 
BORN 28 JULY

Lara Poe is a Finnish-American composer who is currently based in London. She has collaborated with musicians such as the JACK quartet, Dal Niente, Sound Icon, Semiosis quartet, Jonathan Radford, Laura Farré Rosada, Aija Reke, and Timo Kinnunen, and her works have been performed in the US, as well as the UK, Finland, Latvia, Germany, and Taiwan. She has received recognition in several competitions. In 2017, Poe received the BMI Student Composer Award William Schuman Prize for the most outstanding score, and was the winner of the 2016 American Prize in Chamber Music composition, student division. Poe was also a participant in the 2017 Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme, and her piece Mirror Rim was performed at the 2018 Aldeburgh Festival. She is currently taking part in the 2018-2019 LSO Panufnik Scheme. 

Poe is a recent graduate of the Royal College of Music, where she received an Mmus with distinction. At the RCM she studied composition with Kenneth Hesketh as her principal composition professor, and she also studied electroacoustic music with Gilbert Nouno. Prior to her studies at the RCM, Poe studied with Martin Amlin, Richard Cornell, Joshua Fineberg, Paavo Korpijaakko, Rodney Lister, Alex Mincek, and Ketty Nez. She received her Bachelor of Music degree from Boston University, and studied at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School while in grade school. While pursuing her bachelor’s degree, Poe received the both the Boston University’s Wainwright prize and Department of Music Theory and Composition award in 2016, and was inducted into the music honor society Pi Kappa Lambda in April 2016. 

Poe's current projects include Sonifying Noise Pollution, which is a collaboration with Royal College of Art graduate Jennifer Haugan. This project is an interactive, multimedia examination of noise pollution levels throughout the UK. Poe and Haugan presented Sonifying Noise Pollution at the 2017 IRCAM forums in April 2017, and are working to include more data points and more interactive features. Other projects include collaborations with saxophonist Jonathan Radford, the Megalopolis Saxophone orchestra, and accordion-percussion duo km2.

♫ LISTEN

Piano Concerto N.1 - II. Andante by Lara Poe




LEONORA DUARTE  - BELGIUM  

Leonora Duarte was a Flemish composer and musician, born in Antwerp. She belonged to a wealthy Portuguese-Jewish family who were marrano, meaning they outwardly acted as Catholics while secretly maintaining their Jewish faith and practices. She was baptized on 28 July 1610.

Having been one of the six siblings, in the well known musical family of the Duartes, Leonora composed seven sinfonias which are apparently the earliest music written for viol by a woman in the 17th century.

The Duarte home was a center for music-making and had contact with many important families in the Low Countries and England, including one of the most influential Dutchman of all time in, regards to art and culture, Constantijn Huygens. Duarte wrote for violconsort. Her surviving compositions include seven fantasies for a consort of five viols.

As a young composer, Leonora Duarte wrote a set of seven abstract fantasies (one in two parts), written for five viols. These seven short pieces are in the late Jacobean style and called ‘Symphonies’. Her brother, Diego Duarte, set to music various poems by William Cavendish (1650s) and later the psalm paraphrases of Godeau (1673–85), which he dedicated to Constantijn Huygens. None of these works, possibly all for one voice with basso continuo, has survived today.

Leonora Duarte was never commissioned by the church or the court over her lifetime, but stood out in her musical family due to her compositional talent. Her father, Gaspar, was influenced so much by her work, that he hired a professional to transcribe her work and published in on his behalf.

Leonora was capable of combining her native talent with the latest ideas and theory in Italian and French music due to the rich traffic of visitors from all parts of Europe that regularly made it to the Duarte’s house on the Meir. Historical documentation provides ample evidence that the Duarte family entertained important relations with the great Dutchman, Constantijn Huygens. Influences can be noted and applied, regarding the Duarte family and their guests which at one time included, Dirk Sweelinck, son of Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, the Dutch composer whose work helped mark the transition between the Renaissance and Baroque periods of music.

Leonora’s seven short sinfonias reflect the creation and compositional workings of Baroque music within the domestic sphere, where it would have originally been heard and performed.
♫ LISTEN

Sinfonia N. 1 by Leonora Duarte 



27 JULY 2019

Saturday, 27 July 2019


EIBHLIS FARRELL -  USA 
BORN 27 JULY

Eibhlis Farrell is from Rostrevor in Co. Down and studied composition with Raymond Warren, Charles Wuorinen and Robert Moevs. She is a graduate of Queen’s University Belfast and Bristol University, and has a doctorate from Rutgers University, New Jersey. 

Her works cover a wide range of media and have been performed and broadcast throughout Europe and America. She has represented Ireland at the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers and has been guest composer at many international festivals and conferences. She has also recently been the recipient of an Arts Council of Northern Ireland artist’s residency in the Banff Centre, Canada, and the An Foras Feasa visiting fellowship at La Muse Artist Centre, France. In 2011 she received a Distinguished Alumna Award from Rutgers University which cited her outstanding contribution to music and music education.

Eibhlis Farrell is currently Head of Music and Creative Media, and Director of Ionad Taighde Ceoil, the Centre for Research in Music, at Dundalk Institute of Technology. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts and a member of Aosdána, and has served as a member of the Toscaireacht.

♫ LISTEN

Soundschock by Eibhillis Farrell 




IDA HENRIETTE DA FONSECA - ITALY  
BORN 27 JULY

Ida Henriette da Fonseca was a Danish opera singer and composer. She was the daughter of Abraham da Fonseca (1776–1849) and Marie Sofie Kiærskou (1784–1863). She and her sister Emilie da Fonseca were students of Giuseppe Siboni, choir master of the Opera in Copenhagen. She was given a place at the royal Opera alongside her sister the same year she debuted in 1827.

She made tours in Europe in 1829 and 1833–34, performing in Hannover, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, after which she was named one of the greatest singers in Scandinavia and prima donna, but as she was not a soprano but an alto, which was not fashionable at the time, she was in fact not given many parts at the Danish opera. She often performed breeches roles. She retired in 1840.

In 1841, she was named royal court singer at her request, as it would make it easier to get students: she was suffering from economical difficulties and worked as a singing teacher. She performed at court the last time in 1842. She was popular as a concert singer, however, and much active as such. In 1844-47, she visited Sweden and Norway. In 1848, she published her first composition, and became one of the very first woman composers of her country.

♫ LISTEN

Die Erwartung by Ida Henriette da Fonseca 



26 JULY 2019

Friday, 26 July 2019


SARA CORRY -  USA 
BORN 26 JULY

Sara Corry is currently a member of the U.S. Army where she serves as a Staff Arranger for the U.S. Army Band "Pershing's Own." For the last six years she has been a Teaching Fellow at Interlochen Arts Camp, providing instruction on electronic music and theory.

As a composer, Corry has had notable performances by the JACK Quartet, Harvard's Videri String Quartet, Dallas Symphony Chamber Players, Meadows Symphony Orchestra (Dallas), Interlochen Ensemble and the Musica Nova Ensemble (UMKC). She has received commissions from the Playground Ensemble, Dallas Museum of Art - Nasher Sculpture Center, and University of Colorado. She has been a featured composer at the Aquilla Summer Music Festival, ISCM Miami, and the UNC Open Space Festival. Her Composition "Aftersong" is included on the "Electronic Masters Vol. 5" CD released in 2016 by ABLAZE Records.

Coming from both a scientific and musical background, she was the recipient of a Catalyst grant to fund her ideas linking music and physics and won the O'Neal-Taniguchi prize for Arts Entrepreneurship for the development of a computer program that reads brainwaves and aids in musical performance. 

In addition to composing and arranging, Corry is an active harpist. As a musician, she has performed in Carnegie Hall, Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Meyerson Symphony Center, Meng Concert Hall, as well as venues in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France.

She earned a Master's degree in Music Composition from the University of Texas at Austin and is currently finishing her D.M.A in Music Composition and Technology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her principle teachers include Dan Kellogg, John Drumheller, Donald Grantham, Dan Welcher, Yevgeniy Sharlat, and Rob Frank.
♫ LISTEN

Aftersong by Sara Corry 




ADA GENTILE - ITALY  
BORN 26 JULY

Ada Gentile was born in Avezzano and attended the Conservatorio di St. Cecilia in Rome, graduating in piano and composition. She then completed a graduate degree at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia with Goffredo Petrassi. She has lectured at Northwestern University, Juilliard School, Wayne State University, Columbia University, the University of Chicago and the University of California, Berkeley in the United States and also widely in Europe and Asia. She was Deputy Director of St. Cecilia Conservatory from 1999 to 2005, and has been instrumental in organizing a number of music festivals. Her works have been performed internationally.

Gentile maintains an extended discography. Selected recording include:
  • La voce contemporanea in Italia, Vol. 2 - Audio CD (Nov. 14, 2006) by Ennio Morricone, Bruno Maderna, Ada Gentile, Carlo Mosso, et al.
  • Vittorio Fellegara: Requiem di Madrid, Die Irae, Notturno Ada Gentile: Criptografia, Shading - Audio CD by Ada Gentile, Vittorio Fellegara, Giulio Bertola, Lev Martkitz, et al.
  • Paesaggi Della Mente - Audio CD by Ada Gentile and Manuel Zurria - flute
  • Plot in Fiction - Audio CD (Aug. 27, 2002) by Enrico Correggia, Luca Francesconi, Giacinto Scelsi, Ada Gentile, et al.
  • Musica De Camera - Audio CD (Dec. 12, 1995)
♫ LISTEN

Polvere by Ada Gentile



25 JULY 2019

Thursday, 25 July 2019



NINA SMEETS-RODRIGUES - BELGIUM  
BORN 25 JULY

Nina was born on the 25th of July 1986 in a musical family. She started listening to piano music from when she was still in the belly of her mother, Eliane Rodrigues, a Brazilian pianist and composer.

At the age of three, Nina suffered a big accident. After being for a long time in a coma, the doctors lost all hope. Miraculously she got conscious after repetitively listening to the 12th piano concerto from Mozart, played by her mother.

After graduating from high school, she followed her dream and went to study piano with Professor Levente Kende and her mother, Eliane Rodrigues, at the Antwerp Conservatory in Belgium.

She not only broadened her knowledge as a solo pianist, but also gained experience in accompanying vocalists (under the tutelage of Jozef de Beenhouwer and Lucienne Van Dyck), pianoforte (under the tutelage of Bart van Oort and Ayako Ito), musical analysis (under the tutelage of Wim Henderickx and Yves Senden) and chamber music.

After getting her Master degree, Nina made her debute concerts with her mother on stage in Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland. She took mastercourses with Kum-Sing Lee en Maria Szraiber, Pierre Amoyal and played in many international European festivals.

She played among others with Yuri Serov, Avi Avital, Lidia Kovalenko, Mikhail Zemtsov, Gavriel Lipkind, Dana Zemtsov, Wim Ilsen and Mathieu van Bellen.

In 2013 Nina plays the piano concerto of Gershwin in Switzerland with orchestra. After playing the concerto, she decides to play one of her own pieces as an encore. After a very positive feedback about her music, she starts playing other pieces written by herself on other concerts.
♫ LISTEN

Genesis: 1. The Garden of Eden by Nina Smeets-Rodrigues




CLARA GOTTSCHALK PETERSON - USA 
BORN 25 JULY

Clara Gottschalk Peterson was the sister of Louis Moreau Gottschalk, composer and virtuoso pianist. She was a staunch protector of her brother's music in its original form.

♫ LISTEN

Staccato Polka by Clara Gottschalk Peterson



24 JULY 2019

Wednesday, 24 July 2019



ALISSA FIRSOVA - RUSSIA//UK 
BORN 24 JULY

Alissa Firsova is a British-Russian pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist she gave her Wigmore Hall and Proms debuts in 2009 and has appeared in Dartington, Cheltenham, Presteigne, Messiaen at Southbank, Fuerstensaal Classix and Seattle festivals as well as numerous concert venues throughout UK, Germany, Holland, France, Turkey, Portugal, Switzerland and the US. She has enjoyed collaborations with distinguished artists such as Stephen Kovacevich, Tim Hugh, Roman Simovic, Andrew Marriner, Julius Berger and the Dante Quartet. Her debut solo piano CD, Russian Emigres, was released in Aug 2015 on Vivat with music by Rachmaninov, her parents and herself.Since winning the BBC Proms/Guardian Young Composer competition in 2001, she has received two world premieres at the Proms, both conducted by Andrew Litton: her Bach Allegro was performed by the RPO in 2010 and her Bergen’s Bonfire Op. 31 featured in the Bergen Philharmonic’s 250th Anniversary Prom in 2015. 

 Her music was also performed by Imogen Cooper, Henning Kraggerud, Tim Hugh, Julius Berger, Dante Quartet, Netherlands Blazer Ensemble, Seattle Chamber Players, Xenia Ensemble, Philharmonia Soloists, Northwest Sinfonietta, Interface Quartet, Tana Quartet and Britten Sinfonia. She was recently invited to Verbier, Asiago and Conques Festivals as composer-in-residence and her music is recorded on CD by Henning Kraggerud and The Sixteen.After completing the postgraduate conducting course at Royal Academy of Music under Colin Metters, Alissa had her triple-debut with the English Chamber Orchestra as director, composer and conductor at the Cadogan Hall in 2013. In 2015 she conducted the Camerata RCO in the world premiere of her Le Soleil de Conques Op. 33.

♫ LISTEN

Fantasy for Cello & Piano by Alissa Firsova




HELOISA FLEURY - BRAZIL  
BORN 24 JULY

French/Brazilian composer Heloisa Fleury has lived in Paris since 1980, after obtaining a scholarship from the French Government. At the CNSMP she was trained in Composition and Analysis (with Claude Ballif) and Orchestration (with Serge Nigg), and at the Sorbonne in Musicology. Heloisa Fleury has attended several international composition and contemporary music master-classes and has composed a great number of pieces in the late 20th century style, ranging from post-serialism to spectral music. This includes her orchestral works, such as Briseur d’Images and Vom Lichte getragen. Over time she evolved towards a more “classical”, tonal, and, at the same time, a more modern style, with works such as Germinal, an opera rock, and dozens of songs in English, Portuguese or French. Next she entered a sacred music phase, with works like the Brazilian Mass, Missa Brevis, Requiem, Preghiera Semplice and There the soul dwells, among others.

Heloisa has often performed in Europe and won several awards in composition competitions; some of her scores have been edited in France (Editions À Coeur Joie) and in England (Recital Music).

In 2018, Heloisa Fleury’s music was performed three times, at the Hoffnungskirche, Berlin, with Michael Geisler as conductor. In addition to a new version of the Brazilian Mass, others new pieces were also performed, as Ich stehe an deiner Krippen hier, Tempo de Natal, Chacona Latina and Prélude (all these pieces based on J.S.Bach) and Die Seligpreisungen.

♫ LISTEN

Chacone Latina by Bach-Fleury 


23 JULY 2019

Tuesday, 23 July 2019



CASSANDRA MILLER - CANADA 
BORN 23 JULY

Dr Cassandra Miller is a Canadian composer living in London, UK, and is Associate Head of Composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Her notated compositions (About Bach, Duet for Cello and Orchestra, Philip the Wanderer, etc.) explore transcription as a creative process, through which the expressive vocal qualities of pre-existing music are both magnified and transfigured. Her non-notated compositions (So Close, Tracery) take the form of extended collaborations with solo musicians. Using an approach that combines automatic singing and mimicry, Miller creates vulnerable and hospitable spaces for deep listening.

Honours include the Jules-Léger Prize for New Chamber Music, Canada’s highest recognition for composition, which she received twice—for Bel Canto in 2011 and About Bach in 2016. Two recent releases by the Another Timbre label have received wide acclaim, including a four-star review in the Guardian and inclusion on New Yorker’s Ten Notable Recordings of 2018. In 2019, About Bach received a nomination for the Classical Composition of the Year Juno Award.

Her works are often written with specific performers in mind, involving their intimate participation in the creative process. Her closest collaborators in this fashion have included soprano Juliet Fraser, the Quatuor Bozzini, conductor Ilan Volkov, cellist Charles Curtis, pianist Philip Thomas, violinist Silvia Tarozzi and violinist Mira Benjamin. Pieces written expressly for them have been toured and performed across the UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, Norway, Uruguay, the United States and Canada.

Over the last 15 years she has received over 25 professional commissions from soloists, ensembles and orchestras both in Canada and across Europe. Notable performers include the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic, EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, the London Sinfonietta, I Musici de Montréal, Ensemble Plus-Minus, the late great Ensemble Kore, Continuum Contemporary Music, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.

Teaching takes a central role in her artistic life. She has held a faculty position at Guildhall since September 2018, when she was made Associate Head of Composition (Undergraduate). Her teaching philosophy prioritizes inclusivity and diversity, and questions notions of canonization. Previously, she taught composition modules at the University of Huddersfield (2014-16) and the University of Victoria (2008-09).

Miller has been invited to give lectures about her work in the US at Stanford and Columbia Universities; in the UK at the Royal Academy of Music, Bath Spa University Centre for Musical Research, Birmingham Conservatoire, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Centre for Research in New Music in Huddersfield, and Brunel University; in Canada at McGill University, the Cluster New Music and Integrated Arts Festival, and the Open Space Gallery of Victoria. She has additionally taught masterclasses and workshops at the Orkest de Ereprijs Young Composers Meeting (NL), Brunel University, the University of Manitoba, and the Montreal Contemporary Music Lab

♫ LISTEN

Leaving by Cassandra Miller




MRS. PHILARMONICA - UK 

Mrs Philarmonica (fl. 1715) was the pseudonym of an early-18th century English female, Baroque composer. She published a collection of 6 trio sonatas for two violins with violoncello obbligato and continuo, as well as a set of 6 divertimenti for 2 violins, violoncello or harpsichord (or organ) with Richard Meares in London about 1715. Her actual identity is unknown. 

♫ LISTEN

Divertimento da Camara by Mrs. Philarmonica  

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