Settings of Dalloway -- an opera and dance-theatre work. 
Premiered in Copenhagen for Pulsar Festival 2020. 

Scene performed by: 
     Johanna Maria Nylund - Mrs Dalloway 
     Åsne Sjølie Sandegren - Lucrezia Warren-Smith 
     Richard Låås - Septimus Warren-Smith 

With Dancers:
     Jessica Lyall - Dalloway's Shadow 
     Ruth Rebekka Hansen and Stefanos Bizas - Abstractions 

"You cannot find peace by avoiding life." -- Virginia Woolf

A stream of consciousness setting of Virginia Woolf's "Mrs Dalloway" as a work for stage. Fusing the forms of opera and dance-theatre, the work takes form as an immersive poetic telling of the classic novel.

Performed by musicians of the Royal Danish Academy of Music for Pulsar Festival 2020, Dance & Drama.

Dalloway - Excerpt - Where The Dead Walk

Settings of Dalloway -- an opera and dance-theatre work.
Premiered in Copenhagen for Pulsar Festival 2020.

Scene performed by:
Johanna Maria Nylund - Mrs Dalloway
Ni Zhou
Katrin Helena Kuslap
Åsne Sjølie Sandegren
Richard Låås
Thomas Zimmermann
Jonathan Munro

With Dancers:
Jessica Lyall - Dalloway's Shadow
Ruth Rebekka Hansen and Stefanos Bizas - Abstractions

"You cannot find peace by avoiding life." -- Virginia Woolf

A stream of consciousness setting of Virginia Woolf's "Mrs Dalloway" as a work for stage. Fusing the forms of opera and dance-theatre, the work takes form as an immersive poetic telling of the classic novel.

Performed by musicians of the Royal Danish Academy of Music for Pulsar Festival 2020, Dance & Drama.

Dalloway - Excerpt - Snow Falls

Flower eating scene from dance-film directed by Manu Sheen

Flowers

Performed by Rachael Kwa, Hamish Jameson. 

Commissioned by the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) as part of The ANAM Set, funded by the Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund – an Australian Government Initiative. 

Producer: Duncan Yardley
Engineer: Russell Thomson

Lapse

Chamber setting for alto, tenor, violin, violoncello, harp and percussion (cymbals, typewriter, bass drum, ocean drum). 

Premiered in the Salle Molière, Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier Occitanie for "Paroles et Musique". 

Directed by Rennik-Jan Neggers with text by Franciska Éry.
Music by Kirsten Milenko. 

Sora Elisabeth Lee : direction
Anthea Pichanick : contralto 
Fabien Hyon : ténor
Ludovic Nicot : violon
Pia Segerstam : violoncelle
Pascal Martin : percussions
Aurélie Saraf : harpe

Loops

Bass flute, bass clarinet, prepared piano. 

In moments of stillness, the intimate sounds of our world emerge into the audible realm and bring with them a state of absolute peace. 

This work was written for and first performed by members of the E-Mex ensemble: Evelin Degen (bass flute), Joachim Striepens (bass clarinet) and Martin von der Heydt (piano) while studying on the Synthetis International Summer School for Composition in Poland. 

Performed by Matt Withers at the National Arboretum in Canberra. 

The title translates to 'at dawn' and traces the path of morning coming to life in the Australian bushland.

à l'aube

An analysis of the phenomenon 'opia' as coined in the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, defining neologisms for emotions that do not otherwise have a descriptive term. 

Composed for and premiered by the Esbjerg Ensemble in tandem with Pulsar Festival 2018

...

Opia (n.) the ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable—their pupils glittering, bottomless and opaque—as if you were peering through a hole in the door of a house, able to tell that there’s someone standing there, but unable to tell if you’re looking in or looking out. 

The piece is presented in three movements. It examines first an intimacy and desire to turn away from the observer, second eyes opening as the lines between observer and observed are blurred, and third the interactions between two pairs of eyes - their shadows and light moving together as one. 

With thanks the Esbjerg Ensemble, Rei Munakata and to everyone involved in the workshop, planning and performance.

Opia

Premiered 8th March 2019 by the RDAM Sinfonietta conducted by Jean Thorel with soloists Emma Ilona Mustaniemi (soprano) and Stephen George Yeseta (countertenor). Text sourced from William Blake’s ‘Songs of Innocence and of Experience’. Excerpt:

              The thrones of Kings are shaken,
              Tombs in desolate places:
              Night is worn
              And the morn rises
                                from slumberous Mass.
.
.
.

Night is worn

A piece on the subject of finding clarity as the immediate surrounds continue to blur. Composed for the Gildas Quartet and Lucy Humphris - written at Dartington while studying with Sir Harrison Birtwistle.

Duets

Symphony d'aere - reduced version as performed at the WASBE Conference in Buñol, Spain with conductor John Lynch and violin soloist Anna Da Silva Chen.

Symphony d'aere - 2019

An installation work on the central nervous system performed in March 2019 for Pulsar Festival, Copenhagen.

Sensibilité

Footsteps between forest-speak to city-scape. Thoughts on the importance of preservation and our methods of "progress" in civilised society.

Sounds captured in Newport, Frenchs Forest and Hyde Park (Sydney, Australia).

Designed for 5th order ambisonics.

Enouement

“Untangle the madness that knots me.” - Kae Tempest

Performance by Ensemble MusikFabrik and Eva Reiter at the 2020 Académie Voix Nouvelles. 6th Septembre 2020; Réfectoire des Moines, Royaumont. 

Instrumentation: violin, viola, violoncello, double bass, bass viol.

We Are Strangers

Australian composer-conductor based in Paris. 

Studied composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and the Royal Danish Academy of Music, followed by the 2022-23 Cursus de composition et d’informatique musicale at IRCAM. 

Studied conducting at Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana, Royal Academy of Music on the Sorrell Conductors Program, and currently at the École Normale de Musique de Paris. 

Académicienne for the 2025–27 Académie internationale des jeunes compositrices at l’Orchestre de chambre de Paris.

Kirsten Milenko

Pinned to spotlight

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