Miranda Cuckson: Invisible Colors

Violinist Miranda Cuckson celebrates the release of her new Urlicht Audiovisual album on this special night. The album features five solo works by three composers who radically rethought how we perceive time, musical space, simultaneity, and continuity:

• Unsichtbare Farben and Intermedio alla ciaconna by Brian Ferneyhough
• Piece in Two Parts and Second Piece for violin alone by Stefan Wolpe
• Four Lauds by Elliott Carter

The album was recorded at National Sawdust by resident sound engineer Sascha von Oertzen.

On April 5, Miranda will perform the two Ferneyhough pieces, and further explore the idea of “unsichtbare farben”, or “invisible colors”, with the premiere of a piece by Wang Lu for violin and video titled “Unbreathable Colors”, addressing the timely issue of smog pollution. She will also play Wolpe’s “Second Piece” and English composer Richard Barrett’s piece “Air”.

About Miranda Cuckson

Violinist/violist Miranda Cuckson is a favorite of audiences for her performances of a range of repertoire and styles, from classical works to the most current creations. She has in recent years become one of the most sought-after performers of contemporary music. As a soloist and chamber musician, she performs at such venues as the Berlin Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall, Teatro Colón, Miller Theatre, 92nd Street Y, Guggenheim Museum, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Museum of Modern Art, Monday Evening Concerts in LA, and the Marlboro, Bard, Lincoln Center, Bridgehampton, Music Mountain, Portland and Bodensee festivals.

This album of music of Wolpe, Carter and Ferneyhough adds to her adventurous and varied discography. Her first album for ECM Records – sonatas by Bartók, Schnittke and Lutoslawski – was released in 2016, and her recording of Nono’s La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura for violin and electronics on Urlicht Audiovisual was named a Best Classical Recording of 2012 by the New York Times. Also on Urlicht Audiovisual, she released Melting the Darkness, a program of solo microtonal and electronics pieces by Xenakis, Haas, Rowe and more, and an album of works by Carter, Sessions and Eckardt. Her discography also features the Korngold and Ponce violin concertos, solo and duo music by American composers Ross Lee Finney, Ralph Shapey and Donald Martino, the wreckage of flowers: solo and duo music of Michael Hersch, and music by Philip Glass, Jeffrey Mumford and Dai Fujikura.

She has made lauded appearances as soloist with orchestras in the US and abroad, including her Carnegie Hall (Stern Auditorium) debut in Piston’s concerto with the American Symphony Orchestra. Miranda’s upcoming performances include a new violin concerto by Georg Friedrich Haas to be premiered in Tokyo, Stuttgart and Porto, the New York premiere of Michael Hersch’s concerto, and solo and chamber music at the West Cork Music Festival in Ireland. Her recent recital appearances include the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music series, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Met Breuer, the Art Institute of Chicago, Miller Theatre, Strathmore and the Look and Listen Festival. Miranda has collaborated with an array of celebrated composers including Dutilleux, Carter, Adès, Sciarrino, Adams, Boulez, Hyla, Mackey, Crumb, Iyer, Saariaho, Davidovsky, Ran, Hurel, Bermel, Wyner, Murail, Wuorinen and Currier. In 2012, the Library of Congress commissioned a work for her by Harold Meltzer, which she premiered there in honor of Fritz Kreisler. In addition, Miranda considers her opportunities to work with emerging composing talents an important aspect of her role as an artist.

She is director of non-profit Nunc, a member of counter)induction, and a guest performer/curator at National Sawdust in Brooklyn. She studied at The Juilliard School, where she received her BM, MM and DMA degrees and won the school’s Presser and Richard F. French Awards. She is on the violin faculty at the Mannes School of Music in New York.

About Wang Lu

Composer Wang Lu is a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow and an Assistant Professor of Music at Brown University. Her works reflect a very natural identification with influences from traditional Chinese music, urban environmental sounds, linguistic intonation and contour, and freely improvised traditions, through the prism of contemporary instrumental techniques and new sonic possibilities.

She received her doctoral degree in composition at Columbia University in 2012. Wang Lu’s works have been performed internationally, by ensembles including the Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Minnesota Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lille, Holland Symfonia, Shanghai National Chinese Orchestra, Taipei Chinese Orchestra, Musiques Nouvelles, and Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, among others. She has participated in festivals such as the 2014 New York Philharmonic Biennale, MATA Festival, Cresc. Biennale in Frankfurt, Gaudeamus Music Week, Tanglewood, Cabrillo Music Festival, and Pacific Music Festival. Current projects include commissions for ICE, Alarm will Sound, Yarn/Wire and the Momenta Quartet.