CASSANDRA MILLER - CANADA
BORN 23 JULY
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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