Profile
Praised for her “undeniable musicality” (New York Times) and “command of line and naturalness of expression” (Gramophone), violinist and violist Miranda Cuckson delights listeners with her playing of a remarkably wide range of music and styles, from older eras to the newest creations. Known as a "fearless, visionary and tremendously talented artist” (Sequenza21), she is acclaimed internationally as a soloist and collaborator and performs at venues large and small, concert halls, schools, and informal spaces.
As soloist these have included the Berlin Philharmonie, Suntory Hall, Casa da Musica Porto, Teatro Colón, Cleveland Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Strathmore, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music series, National Sawdust, and the Bard, Marlboro, Portland, Music Mountain, Ojai, West Cork (Ireland), SinusTon (Germany), Wien Modern (Austria), and LeGuessWho and Soundsofmusic (Netherlands) festivals. Miranda made her Carnegie Hall debut playing Piston’s Concerto No. 1 with the American Symphony Orchestra. She recently premiered concertos written for her by Georg Friedrich Haas in Tokyo, Stuttgart and Porto, and by Marcela Rodriguez in Mexico City. Her upcoming solo performances include the Grafenegg Festival and San Francisco Performances.
Her ongoing dedication to older music includes essentially all of the violin’s core classical repertoire, including performing the complete cycle of ten Beethoven Sonatas and the solo works of JS Bach. While remaining very involved with the Western classical repertoire, Miranda has played countless concerts and premieres of new works and has played a far-reaching inspirational role bringing new creations more to the center of concert life. Reflecting her deeply felt perspective as a multiethnic American, Miranda works with an array of artists from many backgrounds. Composers who have written major works for her also include Jason Eckardt, Reiko Füting, Michael Hersch, George Lewis, Wang Lu, Jeffrey Mumford, Aida Shirazi, Steve Lehman, Rand Steiger, Harold Meltzer, Dongryul Lee, and Stewart Goodyear. In addition to collaborating with many of today’s emerging artists, she has worked with celebrated composers including Dutilleux, Adams, Carter, Sciarrino, Boulez, Crumb, Iyer, Glass, Saariaho, Davidovsky, Ran, and Murail. She is a member of the interdisciplinary collective AMOC, and founder/director of non-profit Nunc.
She has released eleven albums, all to high praise, including the Ligeti, Korngold, and Ponce concertos; music by American composers Finney, Shapey, Martino, Sessions, Carter, Eckardt, Glass, Hersch; her ECM Records album of Bartók, Schnittke and Lutoslawski sonatas; Melting the Darkness, an album of microtonal and electronics pieces; and Nono’s La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura, which was named a Best Recording of the Year by the New York Times.
She is on faculty at the Mannes School of Music at New School University, college and prep divisions. She has done solo residencies and given workshops and masterclasses – working with young violinists and composers – at the Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, UC San Diego, UC Davis, Peabody Institute, Williams College, Rice University, East Carolina University, Lawrence University, Hunter College, CUNY, and more.
Ms. Cuckson studied at The Juilliard School, starting at age 9 in the Pre-College and onward for her BM, MM and doctorate degrees. She won the school's Presser Award and Richard F. French Award, and concerto competitions at Juilliard Pre-College and the Aspen Festival. Her main teachers were Robert Mann, Dorothy DeLay, Felix Galimir, Shirley Givens, Fred Sherry, and the Juilliard Quartet.
www.mirandacuckson.com
Degrees Held
BM The Juilliard School
MM The Juilliard School
DMA The Juilliard School
Professional Affiliation
www.colbertartists.com
www.runningamoc.org
www.nuncmusic.org
Portfolio
www.mirandacuckson.com