Mira Calix

Mira Calix
Calix in 2016
Background information
Birth name	Chantal Francesca Passamonte
Born	(1969-10-28)28 October 1969 Durban,South Africa
Died	25 March 2022(2022-03-25)(aged 52) Bedford,England
Genres	Electronic,classical
Years active	1996–2022
Labels	Warp
Website	www.miracalix.com

Chantal Francesca Passamonte(28 October 1969 – 25 March 2022), known professionally asMira Calix(/ˈmɪrəˈkeɪlɪks/MIRR-əKAY-liks), was a South African-born, British-based audio and visual artist and musician signed toWarp Records.

Although her earlier music is almost exclusively electronic, from the 2000s onwards she incorporated writing for classical instrumentation into her musical works and expanded her practice to include multidisciplinary performance, film and multi-channel installation artworks. She often stated that she considered sound a sculptural material.

Biography

Calix was born Chantal Francesca PassamonteinDurban,South Africa on 28 October 1969.She was raised in Durban in a liberal middle-class family of English and Italian descent. She grew up learningballetand listening to jazz and classical music.She moved toLondonin 1991.She began to work at a record shop and took up organising parties and DJing.She worked at the labels 4AD and Warp Records, where she held the position of a publicist from 1994 to 1997.In the late 1990s, Calix married Sean Booth, who is a member of electronic duoAutechre.The two separated in the mid-2000s.

Calix's earlier music specialised in mixing her intimate vocals with jittering beats and experimental electronic textures and natural sounds.In 2003, she collaborated with theLondon Sinfoniettafor the first time.Nunupremiered at theRoyal Festival Hallin London at a concert titled "Warp Works and 20th Century Masters".The piece then toured internationally, performed by live insects, orchestra, and Calix on electronics. Subsequently, she incorporated orchestration and live classical instruments in her performances and recorded work. She worked with visual artists and musicians from other disciplines to create music for dance, theatre, film, opera, and installations. Calix was commissioned to write new works for the London Sinfonietta,Bang on a Can,theAldeburgh Festival,theRoyal Shakespeare Company,Opera North,Streetwise Opera, theManchester International Festival,National Arts Festival,Sydney Festival,Royal Northern Sinfonia,and more.

In 2004, she formedAlexander's Annexe,a band/ensemble with pianist Sarah Nicolls and sound designer David Sheppard. Their debut performance was at theRavello Festivalin Italy, followed by performances at the Aldeburgh Festival and Parco della Musica in Rome.Alexander's Annexe released the albumPush Door To Exiton Warp in November 2006. Calix consistently titled her works and albums in lower case, having rejected capitalisation due to her introduction to the work ofee cummingsas a child.

As a live performer and DJ, Calix supported and toured withRadiohead,Boards of Canada,Godspeed You! Black Emperor,Autechre,and other artists. She performed at Sonar,Glastonbury,All Tomorrow's Parties,Coachella,Latitude, and other concert halls and festivals.

Commissioned work

Calix had a long history of creating works presented as installation, film, theatre, and dance, as well as more traditional concerts and musical performances. She had a collaborative practice, often working with those from other disciplines, in particular the sciences. These projects were commissioned by some of the world's leading institutions and were often presented as public artworks.

In early 2008, Calix was commissioned to setShakespeare's "Sonnet 130"to music. The project was curated by composerGavin Bryarsfor The Royal Shakespeare Company. During 2007 there were two theatrical works; the first, an opera titledElephant and Castle,for the Aldeburgh Festival, was a collaboration with composerTansy Davies,directed by Tim Hopkins, libretto by authorBlake Morrison.The second,Dead Wedding,premiered at the first Manchester International Festival. Extracts from these performances appear on the albumThe Elephant in the Room: 3 Commissions.The album also includes pieces from a video installation work titledNatures,a collaboration with video artist Quayola and cellist Oliver Coates.

In December 2008,My Secret Heartpremièred at the Royal Festival Hall in London with 100 members of Streetwise Opera. The installation piece, inspired byGregorio Allegri's 17th century choral workMiserere,is a collaboration with British video artists Flat-E. In December 2009, Calix won a British Composer Award forMy Secret Heart.It was described by the judges as "transformational, capturing raw humanity and giving voice to the disenfranchised in a sound-world which is original, absorbing and unsettling".My Secret Heartalso won aRoyal Philharmonic SocietyAward in 2009 and was nominated for a National Lottery Arts Award in 2010. The installation toured in other countries too, both with The Creators Project andThe British Council.In February 2009, she collaborated withUnited Visual ArtistsonChorusfor the opening of the Howard Assembly Rooms in Leeds. The installation piece, which was also exhibited atDurham Cathedraland The Wapping Project, won an Award of Distinction in the Interactive Category atPrix Ars Electronicain 2010. Calix continued to work with UVA, in 2019 for an installation at 180 The Strand.

In 2009, she contributed a cover of aBoards of Canadasong, "In A Beautiful Place Out in the Country", featuring cellist Oliver Coates, to theWarp20compilation. Later in the year she worked withMalcolm MiddletonofArab Strapon a session forBBC Radio 3'sLate Junction.

In 2010, Calix worked with poetAlice Oswaldon another commission for Opera North and collaborated for the first time with the ensembleBang on a Can.Calix and the ensemble premieredSpring Falls Backat the World Financial Center Winter Garden in New York. She also spent the year working on a R&D project to develop her skills in orchestration with composers Tansy Davies andLarry Goves.Exchange and Return,an 18-month-long collaborative project, was awarded a Grant for the Arts byArts Council England.

In 2011, Calix wrote a choral score forFables – A Film Opera,working once more with visual artists Flat-e and Streetwise Opera. The film soundtrack, based on the fable of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf", was nominated for a British Composers Award that year.

In 2012, Calix created an interactive site specific sound sculpture for the cultural Olympiad. "Nothing Is Set In Stone" was presented by the Mayor Of London and Oxford Contemporary Music in partnership with the Natural History Museum and was situated at Fairlop Waters. The sonic aspects of this multichannel work combined her score for a South African choir and field recordings.

In 2013, Calix collaborated with United Visual Artists to create a permanent sound and light installation in the city ofBathby theTwo Tunnels Groupin theCombe Down Tunnelwalking and cycling path.

In 2015, Calix created a large scale mixed media installation, "Inside There Falls", a mixed media installation at Carriageworks, during the Sydney Festival. Her multi-sensory artwork consisted of 180 channel orchestral score and spoken word diffused through custom made speakers incorporated into 1.5 km of hand crushed paper. She invitedRafael Bonachela,choreographer and director of the Sydney Dance Company, to collaborate with her. Dancers wore hidden speakers and performed intermittently throughout the durational installation work. The audience was invited to immerse themselves in the work and don paper suits. It was on this project that Calix initiated her practice of creating what she termed "human diffusion" incorporating small speakers into costumes of performers to create sound installations that are mobile.

In 2016, Calix presented Moving Museum35, a multichannel mixed media sound artwork installed in a commuter bus in Nanjing, China. The installation ran for three months and was the first public artwork presented in the city. It was supported by the British Council, JCDecaux, Amnua Museum of Contemporary Art and Nanjing University of The Arts as part of UKinChina2015.

In 2017, Calix wrote the scores for two productions in the Royal Shakespeare Company's Rome Season directed by Angus Jackson:Julius Caesarfor brass and electronics andCoriolanusfor string quartet and soprano. The plays ran for the entire year between the RSC theatre in Stratford-Upon Avon and the Barbican in London.

In 2018, Calix created "viccissitude of the divided and united", a score for choir presented as a large scale multichannel sound and light installation in collaboration with Tom Piper. The work "Beyond the Deepening Shadow"was commissioned by Historic Palaces London and presented at the Tower of London, to mark the centenary of the end of the Great War. She chose to use the text of the remarkable but forgotten poetMary Bordento connect the geopolitical turbulence of that period and the divisiveness of the current climate.

In 2019, Calix presented a multidisciplinary performance and installation artwork at Bozar in Brussels in response to artistMichelangelo Pistoletto's "Third Paradise" project.

In 2020, Calix created a new digital-instrument that re-voicesJohn Cage's music in response to the percussiveness of his sounds, extending the scope of the Sonatas using her own, idiomatic sound-world, and making connections between Cage's music and contemporary, electronics. She brings body into the work, transcribing and reciting recordings of Cage's life-partner,Merce Cunningham,leading dance rehearsals for the release and project titled "John Cage remixed".

In 2021, Calix exhibited "16 weeks", an audio visual artwork part of a series of works based on the signification of data, at Mimosa House, London.

Recording history

Calix's debut album,One on One,was released by Warp on 6 March 2000. This was followed by another studio album,Skimskittain 2003 andEyes Set Against the Sunin 2007. Two albums of commissioned works, 3 Commissions(2004) andThe Elephant In The Room: 3 Commissions(2008), were also released on Warp Records.Lost Foundling,a collaboration with Mark Clifford of the bandSeefeel,was released on Aperture Records in 2010. HerUtopiaEP, was released on Warp Records in 2019. The record shares its title with the short film written and directed byAdam Thirlwell,for which she wrote the original score. There have also been numerous remixes and contributions to compilations and two installation related releases onThe Vinyl Factory.Her original scores forJulius CaesarandCoriolanusare available through the Royal Shakespeare Company imprint. Calix ran a bespoke Calix Portal through Bleep Records, on which many of her classical works can be found.

Death

Calix died by suicideat her home inBedford,England on 25 March 2022 at the age of 52.

Discography

Albums

• One on One(2000)
• Skimskitta(2003)
• Eyes Set Against the Sun(2007)
• Lost Foundling 1999-2004(2010, collaboration with Mark Clifford of Seefeel)
• Julius Caesar(2018, directed by Angus Jackson for The Royal Shakespeare Company)
• Coriolanus(2018, directed by Angus Jackson for The Royal Shakespeare Company)
• absentorigin(2021)

EPs and singles

• IlangaEP (1996)
• "Pin Skeeling" (single) (1998)
• Peel Session TX 09/03/00(2000)
• "Prickle" (single) (2001)
• Nunu(2003)
• 3 CommissionsEP (2004)
• The Elephant in the Room: 3 Commissions(2008)
• "If then while for"(2014)
• UtopiaEP (2019)

Soundtracks

• Transparent Roads(2008)
• Onibus(2009)
• Khala –Shot List(2009)
• The Orestei– directed by Adele Thomas for Shakespeare's Globe (2017)
• The Other Side of Mars– directed by Minna Långström, napafilms (2019)

Awards

• Royal Philharmonic Society Award –My Secret Heart– winner (2009)
• British Composers Award –My Secret Heart– winner – Community Category (2009)
• Rencontres Audiovisuelles –Strata No. 2– Best Original Soundtrack – winner (2010)
• Grant for the Arts – the Arts Council of England/Escalator Music (2010)
• National Lottery Arts Award –My Secret Heart– nominee (2010)
• Award of Distinction – Prix Ars Electronica – Chorus with United Visual Artists (2010)
• British Composers Award –Fables – A Film Opera– nominee – Outreach Category (2011)
• Lovie Award -Ode To The Future- Gold & People's Award (Internet Video: Music & Entertainment, 2019)
• London International Awards: Finalist (Music & Sound: Music Original – Score) -Ode To the Future(2019)
• Golden Award of Montreux: Gold Medal (Music) -Ode to the Future

External links

• Official website
• Warp Records profile
• Mira Calixdiscography atDiscogs
• Mira CalixatIMDb