Mira Calix
Mira Calix is an award winning composer, artist and performer based in the United Kingdom. She is signed to Warp Records, on which she has released five albums.
Although her earlier music is almost exclusively electronic in nature, in more recent years, she has incorporated classical orchestration into her work for installation pieces, film soundtracks, theatre and opera. Mira has been commissioned to write new works for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic-Ensemble 10/10, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Aldeburgh Festival, Bang On A Can, London Sinfonietta, Opera North and The Manchester International Festival amongst others.
Mira regularly performs live, touring internationally. The scope of her work has taken her to a diverse range of festivals and venues, from Sonar, Transmediale and Latitude, to the Royal Festival Hall, Mariinsky and Lincoln Center.
In the autumn of 2009 she won a British Composer Award for her composition, My Secret Heart. The installation, commissioned by Streetwise Opera, and featuring the voices of a 100 strong choir, was also the recipient of a Royal Philharmonic Society Award in 2009 and was a finalist in the arts category of the National Lottery Award in 2010.
Mira regularly collaborates with musicians and artists from other disciplines. Her collaboration with United Visual Artists on Chorus an installation commissioned by Opera North received an Award of Distinction in the Interactive Category at Prix Ars Electronica 2010. Her score for the film opera Fables a collaboration with visual artists Flat-E was nominated for a British Composer Award in 2011.
In 2012 Mira created her first sculptural work Nothing Is Set In Stone. The monolithic musical sculpture was commissioned by The Mayor Of London and Oxford Contemporary Music in partnership with The Natural History Museum and Exhibition Road Group. The installation was part of the London 2012 Festival, Cultural Olympiad program. 2012 also saw the commission of a new soundtrack score by the British Film Institute for Alfred Hitchcock’s Champagne. The newly restored 1926 full length feature premiered in London in September as part of the Genius of Hitchcock program at the BFI.
In the spring of 2013 Mira Calix was one of the three featured composers at the Metropolis Music Festival alongside Thomas Ades and Mathew Herbert. She performed two classical concerts, a comprehensive retrospective of works at the Melbourne Recital, premiering the specially commissioned; he fell amongst roses.
In 2015 Mira created a large scale cross media installation as part of Sydney Festival, Inside There Falls, featuring choreography by Rafael Bonachela and performances by Sydney Dance Company dancers.