Tectonics 2022 Artist Profile
Cassandra Miller
Cassandra Miller
Cassandra Miller is a Canadian composer living in London. Her notated compositions often explore transcription as a creative process, through which the expressive vocal qualities of pre-existing music are both magnified and transfigured. Other compositions sometimes take the form of collaborations and that combine automatic singing and mimicry to create vulnerable and hospitable spaces for deep listening.
Miller’s Duet for Cello and Orchestra was hailed as one of the ‘best classical music works of the 21st century’ by The Guardian following its premiere at Tectonics 2015 with Charles Curtis, 大象传媒 SSO conducted by Ilan Volkov. Other large-scale pieces include A Large House for string orchestra and percussion, premiered at Ostrava Days in 2009 by the Janá膷ek Philharmonic and Peter Rundel, has since enjoyed performances by the Oslo Philharmonic as part of Only Connect Festival, and the Zipangu Ensemble at Angelica Festival (Bologna), a performance that was later released on disc.
Two portrait discs from Another Timbre have received wide acclaim, including being featured on New Yorker’s Ten Notable Recordings of 2018.
Recent works include Thanksong (2020) for Juliet Fraser and Quatuor Bozzini, Perfect Offering (2020) for Ives Ensemble, and La Donna (2021) for the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and Ruth Reinhardt.
Bismillah Meets the Creator in Springtime by Cassandra Miller and Silvia Tarozzi
Bismillah Meets the Creator in Springtime is co-created by Cassandra Miller and Silvia Tarozzi. It is a concerto of sorts, the duo not above but inside the ensemble, carried as if on a full river—improvising, automatic-singing, mimicking. It is a collage which speaks to the history of our playful and joyful working methods, with much music exchanged, overlapped and transformed over years of friendship.
More specifically, it is made from a mixture of sources including a 1993 recording of Bismillah Khan performing the Raag Malkauns (mimicked and transcribed for material); The Creator has a Master Plan of Pharoah Sanders (the form of the piece, the role of the ‘band’, improvisations made while listening to this music, and the wish for peace and happiness through all the land); some Bach for good measure. The Creator (as the numerological archetype of the number 22) also accompanied much of our process and provided important keys to understanding our musical choices. An even and symmetrical number, it represents the relationship between the two composer-performers—as we left our conventional roles and led each other into our own expressive universes. And why springtime? It’s the time when rivers are most full, welcoming us (and you dear listener) to be carried on something greater than ourselves (through a-a-a-a-all the land).
The work is made possible by a Research & Creation grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, and is dedicated to Gianna and Vanessa, for their long-welcoming collaboration with each other and with the angels.
