Thursday Lunchtimes: Cassandra Miller In Focus

“O Zomer!” was inspired by the Dutch poet and children’s writer Toon Tellegen – for no other reason than that he simply and plainly says what he means. There is no irony or hiding in his work, and what remains is a deep sense of awe, playfulness, love and tragedy.

Note by Cassandra Miller.

What the Thunder Said is inspired by and named for the last section of T. S Eliot’s 1922 poem The Waste Land, which strikes me as prophecy to Toon Tellegen’s parable. It draws on the fragmented structure of the poem and its themes of destruction, despair, renewal and potential and imagines a future to O Zomer!, after the flood, through the drought and out the other side.

Note by Emma Lamber.

Bel Canto is above all a portrait of Maria Callas, based on her live recording of Puccini’s Vissi d’arte – with all the full generosity of her vibrato, swoops and portamenti. At the beginning, it’s as if we hear her young voice, and towards the end, the voice of her later years.

The path of the piece is not only about the ageing of an extraordinary woman, but also about the listener. Time slows down to allow for an engagement with detail, for a submersion in the sound, and for meditative stillness. Two simultaneous ensembles perform independently of each other. This makes for layers of melody, creating a sonic depth of field – echoing the depth of the Greek landscape in which I felt the warm revelation that originally inspired this piece. Separating the ensemble into two smaller groups, without conductor, enables an intense chamber-listening between the players. This intimacy allows them to carry out with great musicality the non-notatable qualities of the swoops and vibrato, and the unnamable subtleties of vocality.

Note by Cassandra Miller.

VIOLIN
Elena Orsi

VIOLA
Hannah Borlase

CELLO
Claudia Kuner

BASS
Marcelo NunesRodrigues

ALTO FLUTE
Michael Noonan

OBOE
Mariam Jackson

CLARINET
Abigail Martin

BASSOON
Connor Huss

TRUMPET
Erin McLellan

PERCUSSION
Hoi Ching Kwong
Ho Wong

PIANO
Tammy See

GUITAR
Ravi Nathwani

Dr Cassandra Miller (1976) is a Canadian composer of vocal, chamber and orchestral music, living in London, UK. Her works are published by Faber Music. Miller’s 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.

Cassandra received of one of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s 2021 Awards for Artists, and twice received the the Jules-Léger Prize for New Chamber Music, Canada’s highest recognition for composition—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. The Duet for Cello and Orchestra written for Charles Curtis and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra was hailed as one of the ‘best classical music works of the 21st century’ (The Guardian, 2019).

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, violinist Mira Benjamin, and violist Lawrence Power. 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.

Notable performers include the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic, EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, the London Sinfonietta, I Musici de Montréal, Ensemble Plus-Minus, the late great Ensemble Kore, Apartment House, Continuum Contemporary Music, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. Festivals and venues featuring her music have included Monday Evening Concerts (Los Angeles), Tectonics Glasgow, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, l’Auditori (Barcelona), Angelica Festival (Bologna), Archipel (Geneva), Only Connect Oslo, Ostrava Days, World Music Days (Ljubljana), Music we’d like to hear (London), Kammer Klang (Café OTO, London), Transit (Leuven), Music on Main (Vancouver), and Núcleo Música Nueva de Montevideo, among many others.

Teaching takes a central role in her artistic life. As Associate Head of Composition from 2018 to 2020, she led the undergraduate composition program at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Her teaching philosophy prioritises inclusivity and diversity, and questions notions of canonisation. Previously, she taught composition modules at the University of Huddersfield (2014-16) and the University of Victoria (2008-09).

Miller has been invited as a visiting teacher and to give lectures about her work in the USA at Stanford University, Columbia University, and CalArts; in the UK at the Royal Academy of Music, Bath Spa University Centre for Musical Research, Birmingham Conservatoire, Centre for Research in New Music in Huddersfield, and Brunel University; in Canada at McGill University, the University of Manitoba, the Montreal Contemporary Music Lab, Winnipeg’s Cluster New Music and Integrated Arts Festival, and the Open Space Gallery of Victoria. In Europe she has taught at the Orkest de Ereprijs Young Composers Meeting (NL), and the Mixtur Workshop of Composition and Sound Experimentation.

Her doctoral research at the University of Huddersfield (supervisor Dr Bryn Harrison, 2018) explored transcription and other transformation methods as compositional processes, and compositional engagements with varied notions of voice and vocality. In 2012, she studied privately with Michael Finnissy, whose impact continues to have a deep effect on her work. She holds a Master of Music from the Royal Conservatory of the Hague (2008, Richard Ayres, Yannis Kyriakides), where she explored narratology and narrative as tools for musical analysis. She holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Victoria (2005), where she studied with Christopher Butterfield, whose radical pedagogical inclusivity and Dada-inspired artistic insight remain crucial foundations for her work to date.

From 2010 to 2013, she held the post of Artistic and General Director of Innovations en concert, a not-for-profit presenter of experimental chamber music concerts and festivals in Montreal. Under her directorship, the organisation championed unusual programming, commissioned major new works, and became known for its support of young freelancers, building international connections for many Quebec artists.