Miranda Cuckson delights listeners with her playing of a remarkably wide range of music and styles, from older eras to the newest creations. Known for her organic expressivity, dexterous virtuosity, musical insight, brilliant programming, and love for music, she is acclaimed internationally as a soloist and collaborator. A violinist and violist, she performs at venues large and small, concert halls, and informal spaces.
While remaining very dedicated to the Western classical repertoire, Miranda has emerged as a major champion of contemporary and living composers. She has played countless concerts and premieres of new works, and is widely acknowledged for the far-reaching inspirational role she has played in bringing new creations more to the center of concert life.
Miranda has released four recordings on Urlicht AudioVisual, and her recording of Luigi Nono’s “La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura” was named a Best Recording of the Year by the New York Times.
Her newest recording, VILÁG, juxtaposes four recent works for unaccompanied violin with Béla Bartók’s iconic Sonata for Solo Violin. Three works receive their recording premieres: Aida Shiraz’s Sāniyā, Stewart Goodyear’s Solo, and Manfred Stahnke’s Capra 4. Franco Donatoni’s Argot rounds out a program that showcases a wide variety of traditional and “classical” styles along with extended sonorities.
Világ is a Hungarian word meaning “world” or “illumination”.
It also resembles the word “village” in English.
In Sanskrit, “vilag” means “to cling to”; in Hindi, “separated”.
“In my frequent work with composers, I had noticed quite a few drawing upon the music of their native countries – the tunes, native instruments, characteristic rhythms. Thinking about what the many cultures of the world mean to people today, I chose for this album to program the Bartók Sonata together with pieces I had recently commissioned from my friends: Aida Shirazi, from Iran, and Stewart Goodyear, from Canada. I also selected two works, one each by Manfred Stahnke and Franco Donatoni, that I’ve recently been playing regularly. While these don’t draw from the composers’ own ethnic cultures, they explore ideas inspired by folk music and un-formalized language.”
— Miranda Cuckson
“Whether pitched at a barely audible hush or delivered with an exuberant flourish, Cuckson’s playing is always compelling and never less than transfixing. Anyone who might think nearly 100 minutes of unaccompanied violin might be less than engaging will be otherwise enlightened by Világ. If anything, hearing her performing alone allows for an enhanced appreciation of her singular artistry.”
—Ron Schepper, Textura
