https://cassandramiller.wordpress.com/2007/05/01/o-zomer/

"O Zomer!” 2007. mixed ensemble: clarinet, oboe, bassoon, trumpet, 2 percussion, piano, cello, contrabass. 7 minutes. Performed here by the Asko Ensemble, Amsterdam, under the direction of Bas Wiegers.

-

In the beginning there was tumult.
Someone called for silence,
for diligence
and then for love.

A man stood up and said:
“How can I ever make it clear that I really,
really . . . ”
“What?” the people around him cried. “What?”
“ . . . do not despise you?”

and that man kissed children falling from the sky,
women flowing past in slow muddy streams,
mothers in their glistening cocoons,

and among the people loneliness erupted,
like thunder in summer.
O summer!

-

"In het begin was er tumult" by Toon Tellegen, translated to English by Judith Wilkinson. Shown here without permission. Quoted from http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poem/item/6439/auto/IN-THE-BEGINNING-THERE-WAS-TUMULT

"O Zomer!"

"O Zomer!" (2007)

https://cassandramiller.wordpress.com/2013/08/06/philip-the-wanderer/

Philip the wanderer
I. Gently rumbling without direction
II. Broadly, surveilling the great expanse
III. Joyfully, jauntily, as if running away from regret itself

commissioned by Philip Thomas with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts

This piece is a transcription of sorts, or an adaptation, a translation, I’m not sure what the right word is. My process began with a short piece of music (Mandowa II, played by Zhuake Masingi) from an album I’d heard once twenty years ago and rediscovered recently, traditional music from Mozambique. Although I react physically to this music, it is certainly exotic – exotic in the sense that it is not me, not my tradition in any way. It feels like an escape. Somehow, I feel much the same way about the piano – it resonates me, but it isn’t my native voice.

Finding myself in new territory with the solo piano, I had to leave my regular way of working. This is where the idea of adaptation came into play: my task with this piece was not to find out how to say something I already felt, but rather, to root around until I found myself somewhere in the material that already existed. Simply put, I worked with the source material and with the piano until I found something there which really moved me. I amplified some things, thinned other sections etc., and I found I was carving out the shape of some kind of imaginary story.

The result is a piece which obsesses over the rhythm of the source material, with its danceable irregularity. I’ve kept the original pitches intact, amplifying them with blocky triads – and I’ve kept the rhythm fetishistically accurate to the original, save for a magnifying of the tempo fluctuations. I did not much else really – I played with register, hid a descending scale just about everywhere (out of habit?) – but for the rest, it is simply a transcription of the humanity of a stranger named Zhuake Masingi from Mozambique. This man was recorded playing this music in 1954, and I know nothing else about him, except of course for the exact microscopic amounts he deviated from a steady pulse in those two minutes 60 years ago.

The sound world and storyline which surface, however, have nothing at all to do with Africa or with 1954. The piece turns out to be very much about me, narcissistically, resulting from my personal tastes and my ability to pay absolutely no respect to the original context of the source material. It is also about Philip Thomas – it was constructed as something of a canvas for him to work with: the notation may be precise, but the emotional content (though earnest) is somewhat arbitrary. I’ve given clues to possible interpretations through some obscure titles and instructive notes, but I’ve left it very much in Philip’s hands to make sense of the wandering.

Philip the Wanderer

Philip The Wanderer (movement 2)

Quatuor Bozzini
https://cassandramiller.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/warblework/

Warblework: Veery (2011)

https://cassandramiller.wordpress.com/2013/08/03/for-mira/

A dedication to violinist Mira Benjamin, for her down-to-earth, no-nonsense gritty focus. Composing this piece was a play of translations: it is a reworking for violin of a computer-made transcription of an un-plugged performance of Kurt Cobain singing Where did you sleep last night (also called In the Pines – a traditional American folk song often attributed to Lead Belly).

nu:nord 2012

for mira

For Mira (premiere - La Sala Rossa - nu:nord 2012)

https://cassandramiller.wordpress.com/2010/05/14/bel-canto/

Bel Canto

Commissioned by Ensemble Kore with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts

Recipient of the 2011 Jules-Léger Prize for New Chamber Music (Canada’s highest honour for composition)

Marie-Annick Béliveau, mezzo-soprano
Geneviève Déraspe, alto flute
Xavier Brossard-Ménard, clarinet
Jonathan Barriault, guitar
John Corban, violin
Pemi Paull, viola
Yegor Dyachkov, cello

The piece is above all a portrait Maria Callas. It’s based on the opening statement (the opening sighs) of Puccini’s Vissi d’arte – Maria Callas’ live version of it, with all the full generosity of her vibrato, swoops and portamenti (all the things outside of notation). 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 through time 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 closeness or submersion in the sound, and possibly for clarity or meditative stillness.

Two simultaneous ensembles perform here without coordinating with each other. This makes for layers of melody, creating a sonic depth of field – echoing perhaps the depth of the Greek landscape in which I felt the warm revelation that originally inspired this piece. Moreover, to separate 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 all of the non-notatable things I mentioned earlier – the swoops and vibrato, and all the unnamable subtleties of vocality.

Bel Canto

Bel Canto, Ensemble Kore with Marie-Annick Béliveau (2010)

https://cassandramiller.wordpress.com/2009/08/30/large-house/

(photo by Susanna Majuri used here without permission)

When I called this piece “A Large House” it was a title I thought up in a hurry, for no specific reason, and it just seemed to fit. In retrospect, it fits because this piece more than any other made me feel like an architect. I was writing something that was a large space, open, but perhaps with huge pillars holding it up. The piece is stationary, it doesn’t move, it’s grounded in one place, and maybe it even resonates like something with a lofty ceiling. As for any other connection between this piece and a large house, you are welcome to make it as you like.

A Large House

Large House (full) - Janacek Philharmonic, Peter Rundell cond., premiere (2009)

https://cassandramiller.wordpress.com/2015/05/10/about-bach/

This string quartet is an expansion of a solo work for viola (of the same name) which was commissioned by philanthropist Daniel Cooper for violist Pemi Paull. It’s a piece about process, about Pemi’s musicality, about Bach of course, and in the end, about the Quatuor Bozzini.

I first took a recording of a short phrase (the first phrase in major) of the famous Chaconne from Bach’s Partita no. 2, performed live by Pemi. I then meticulously transcribed the recording with the help of some software — this is a process I’ve developed over some years to apprehend the exact rhythmic musicality of a performance, capturing as well various artifacts such as the viola’s upper partials as they change within each bow-stroke.

The opening of the piece is simply this transcribed phrase of Bach, with a harmony of my own making, which turns the phrase into a gently jaunty chorale. From there the phrase goes through a somewhat inaudible process that is simply let to run, until it runs itself out. It’s a constant meandering, a non-developmental piece in an extreme sense. My interest (and freedom) in exploring such a simple form comes directly from working with the Quatuor Bozzini, and this string quartet version is a souvenir of gratitude for years of great inspiration.

About Bach

About Bach, Quatuor Bozzini, premiere, excerpt: last 6 minutes (2015)

Commissioned by EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble. 
https://cassandramiller.wordpress.com/2013/10/22/guide/

Guide

Guide - EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble (2013)

https://cassandramiller.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/warblework/

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/warblework-swainsons-thrush/id475163576?i=475163593

À chacun sa miniature

Warblework: Swainson's Thrush

Warblework: Swainson’s Thrush - Quatuor Bozzini (2011)

https://cassandramiller.wordpress.com/2006/09/30/orfeo/

A short piece in eight movements. With each movement, I pruned the material so to include what I'd hoped was the smallest amount of information necessary to make each statement. Each movement is loosely based on sections of the opera l'Orfeo, by Claudio Monteverdi (marking 400 years since its first performance).  A theatrical piece with children's toys and dramatic page turning.

Orfeo by Monteverdi by Cassandra Miller (2006)

9 percussionists (8 timpani and 1 bass drum/tam-tam) with viola and cello. 1998. 10 minutes.

Each of the 8 timpani has its own player. The percussionists play mostly with knitting needles, a very quiet sound. The variation in the sound is made by playing on different locations on each drum head.

Cassandra Miller composer

Pinned to spotlight

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