On 19 October the Royal Northern College of Music presents three concerts of Cassandra Miller’s chamber and orchestral works, as part of a day-long focus. Miller will also be leading workshops with RNCM young composers, whose pieces will appear alongside hers in concert.
The focus culminates in an evening performance of Miller’s Round from the RNCM Brand New Orchestra. The 10-minute orchestral work was premiered by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and André de Ridder in 2017. As with many of Miller’s works, the transcription of recorded music is fundamental to its creation. In Round the melody evokes the inimitable phrasing and rubato of great Catalan cellist Gaspar Cassadó’s performance of Tchaikovsky’s Valse Sentimentale. Its push-and-pull has a soothing quality that spreads across the orchestra, whose players Miller imagines as “48 individual mothers, each rocking a child to sleep.” The piece has previously been performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, and Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
A lunchtime concert from RNCM New Ensemble showcases “O Zomer!” and Bel Canto. The latter, for mezzo-soprano and alto flute, clarinet, guitar, violin, viola, and cello, is a portrait of Maria Callas, based on her famous live recording of Vissi d’arte. Miller spotlights the idiosyncrasies of Callas’ singing – her vibrato, portamenti, and swoops – as the 16-minute piece unfolds, following the changes in her voice as she aged. “The path of the piece is not only about the ageing of an extraordinary woman, but also about the listener”, Miller writes. “Time slows down to allow for an engagement with detail, for a submersion in the sound, and for meditative stillness.” Dylan Jenkins sings the mezzo part.
“O Zomer!” (2007) is scored for oboe, bassoon, trumpet, two percussionists, piano, cello, and double bass. It is titled after a poem by Dutch children’s writer Toon Tellegen – “for no other reason”, Miller says, “than that he simply and plainly says what he means…what remains is a deep sense of awe, playfulness, love and tragedy.” The 7-minute work was recorded by Apartment House and Jack Sheen on Another Timbre in 2018.
The day also sees the RNCM New Ensemble tackle Miller’s string quartet Warblework and Holly Calder perform 2012 piano work Philip the Wanderer. Composed for Philip Thomas, the work’s three movements transcribe, translate, and adapt by turns the recording of Mandawa II by Mozambican musician Zhukake Masingi, relishing in the danceable irregularity of the source material. It represents one of Miller’s initial experiments in transcribing with unshakeable loyalty the movements of another musician.
Warblework (2011 rev. 2017) comprises four movements, each inspired by the songs of different thrushes, and was written for Miller’s longstanding collaborators Quatuor Bozzini; the 17-minute piece is currently touring the UK as part of Manchester Collective’s Different Trains programme.
On 16 September Dinis Sousa and the Royal Northern Sinfonia premiered Miller’s Swim, a 16-minute companion piece to Schumann’s Symphony No.3 (“Rhenish”), and scored for the same forces; listen to the BBC’s broadcast of Swim here. It was co-commissioned by Vancouver Symphony Orchestra & Victoria Symphony supported by the Hugh Davidson Fund at the Victoria Foundation, and Royal Northern Sinfonia, and receives its North American premiere from the Victoria Symphony on 4 November.
On 28 September Ilan Volkov and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra are joined by Charles Curtis for the first of two performances of Duet for Cello and Orchestra, premiered by the same lineup in 2015 at Tectonics.