Cathy Milliken
Composer / Performer / Creative Director
Cathy Milliken moves between manifold musical worlds, taking great joy in facilitating creativity and participation. Through the diversity and relevance of her output, and especially her multi-national collective creative projects, she has won international recognition as a leading composer, creative director, performer and educational program consultant.
One thing is common to all of her work: the delight in the moment, whether it be in the humour, the sound, the gesture or the structure of that particular experienced moment.
︎ Annika Bauer
Cathy has devised and composed works for theatre, opera, choir, orchestra, chamber ensembles radio and film, and created installations. She has been commissioned by the Berliner Staatsoper, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Staatstheater Darmstadt, Zafraan Ensemble Berlin, Lux:NM, the Arditti Quartet, Basel Sinfonietta, Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne, South Bank Centre London, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Speak Percussion, the ZKM (Centre for New Media) Karlsruhe, The Experimentalstudio of Freiburg, as well as the CCMIX(enakis) Centre in Paris, the German Public Radio Stations of Saarland, Hessen; the Deutschlandfunk and Concerto Köln.
From 2018-2020, she was Composer in Association with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra - a position comprising the creation of a new orchestral work each year
Her CD “Two Step” was
released to critical acclaim in early 2020 on the Tall Poppies label.
A recent highlight - alongside premieres of a solo oboe work, a duo for clarinet and bassoon, a collaborative piece for viola and film, further national premieres of Ediacaran Fields for orchestra, and a work for choirs and organ - was Sonnet of an Emigrant. This work for quartet and narrator was commissioned by Musica Viva Australia for its 40th anniversary and premiered and toured by the Takács Quartet and Angie Milliken.
Forthcoming projects include a commission by the Berlin Philharmoniker of a Concerto for Cor-Anglais to be performed by under Sir Simon Rattle (soloist: Dominik Wollenweber) during Musikfest Berlin (2026); as well as an opera for Sydney Chamber Opera and Ensemble Offspring.
In 2019, her new work Bright Ring, commissioned by Ensemble Modern for large ensemble, was performed under the baton of Sir George Benjamin in Wigmore Hall, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and the Alte Oper Frankfurt in March 2019, receiving enthusiastic reviews:
A recent highlight - alongside premieres of a solo oboe work, a duo for clarinet and bassoon, a collaborative piece for viola and film, further national premieres of Ediacaran Fields for orchestra, and a work for choirs and organ - was Sonnet of an Emigrant. This work for quartet and narrator was commissioned by Musica Viva Australia for its 40th anniversary and premiered and toured by the Takács Quartet and Angie Milliken.
Forthcoming projects include a commission by the Berlin Philharmoniker of a Concerto for Cor-Anglais to be performed by under Sir Simon Rattle (soloist: Dominik Wollenweber) during Musikfest Berlin (2026); as well as an opera for Sydney Chamber Opera and Ensemble Offspring.
In 2019, her new work Bright Ring, commissioned by Ensemble Modern for large ensemble, was performed under the baton of Sir George Benjamin in Wigmore Hall, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and the Alte Oper Frankfurt in March 2019, receiving enthusiastic reviews:
“Has anyone ever heard such an intense piece of music? Such a nuanced play of sound colours that were wandering spacially through the ensemble? [...] Cathy Milliken aligns that which seems to come up short in academic composing: energies, synergies and crosscurrents.”
- Dr. Doris Kösterke (musicologist /journalist)
- Dr. Doris Kösterke (musicologist /journalist)
Earth
Plays, a four-movement orchestral
work, was premiered by the Bavarian Radio Orchestra and mezzo-soprano Fiona
Campbell in December 2015, a commission by the prestigious Musica Viva in
Munich. A later performance at the Tectonics Festival in Adelaide
won the Australian Art Music Award in 2016, which she was again awarded in 2021 for Piece 43 for Now for its Donaueschinger Musiktage premiere by SWR Symphonieorchester. She was also a finalist in the 2017
Mario Merz International Music Prize for composers. Other Awards include “Prix
Marulic” and “Prix Italia”
;
and in 2025 another Australian Art Music Award for her string quartet In Speak for the premiere performance by the Arditti Quartet at the Pierre Boulezsaal in
Berlin, as well as an Australian Women in Music Award.
From
2005 – 2012, Cathy Milliken was Director of the Education Program of the Berlin
Philharmonic Orchestra.
Participatory
compositional projects in recent years have taken her to South Africa, Japan
and Oman.
She was awarded the YAMAward (Young Audiences Music Award) for Best Opera for a Young Audience,for Romeo’s Passion, which was commissioned by the Umculo Festival and premiered at the Hillbrow Theatre in Johannesburg.
Romeo’s Passion, Umculo Festival, South Africa
︎ Elbphilharmonie Hamburg
She is part of the creative team for the Munich Biennale for Music
Theatre and serves as honorary member of advisory boards for the German Music
Council and the Goethe Institute.
Her participatory composition Stadtlied (City Song) was premiered under conductor Vimbayi Kaziboni in the sold-out Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg in 2019. It brings together different communities within a city – in part by means of collaborative texts and compositions. The performance in Hamburg included a semi-professional orchestra, two singers, an actor, the Weltkapelle group, a jazz trio, mandolin ensemble, university choir and guitar ensemble, as well as composers and writers.
Her participatory composition Stadtlied (City Song) was premiered under conductor Vimbayi Kaziboni in the sold-out Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg in 2019. It brings together different communities within a city – in part by means of collaborative texts and compositions. The performance in Hamburg included a semi-professional orchestra, two singers, an actor, the Weltkapelle group, a jazz trio, mandolin ensemble, university choir and guitar ensemble, as well as composers and writers.
︎ Jacintha Nolte
Born in Brisbane, Australia,
and based in Berlin, Cathy Milliken completed her music degree in Australia
majoring in performance (piano and oboe) and furthering her studies in Europe
under Heinz Holliger and Maurice Bourgue, as well as gaining a Diplom in the
Dalcroze Method of teaching music.
A highly specialised performer, and a founding member of the renowned group for contemporary music, Ensemble Modern Germany, Cathy Milliken has worked with many of this century’s leading composers and conductors, including Pierre Boulez, Peter Eötvös, Frank Zappa, György Ligeti and Karlheinz Stockhausen (who produced her performance of Spiral on CD – published by Stockhausen Verlag Nr. 45).
Cathy performs regularly with voice and oboe and is a member of Ensemble Extrakte, a Berlin based group noted for its diverse musical cultural practice.
A highly specialised performer, and a founding member of the renowned group for contemporary music, Ensemble Modern Germany, Cathy Milliken has worked with many of this century’s leading composers and conductors, including Pierre Boulez, Peter Eötvös, Frank Zappa, György Ligeti and Karlheinz Stockhausen (who produced her performance of Spiral on CD – published by Stockhausen Verlag Nr. 45).
Cathy performs regularly with voice and oboe and is a member of Ensemble Extrakte, a Berlin based group noted for its diverse musical cultural practice.
︎artist’s website (work catalogue, info, recordings, publications)
Listen:
︎︎︎ Piece 43 For Now (Donaueschinger Musiktage, SWR Symphonieorchester under Titus Engel, WP)
︎︎︎ A Desperate Adventure, and Courage and a Clock (Ensemble Zafraan)
︎︎︎ Crie (Véronique Serret, violin)
︎︎︎ Earth Plays V Ediacaran Fields (Basel Sinfonietta Danish premiere at KLANG Festival Copenhagen)
︎︎︎ Cathy Milliken on Soundcloud ︎
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In the recording studio with Jocelyn B. Smith (radio play “Driving with Fatima” with texts by Fatima Dike, the first black South African woman to have a play published).
Listen:
︎︎︎ Piece 43 For Now (Donaueschinger Musiktage, SWR Symphonieorchester under Titus Engel, WP)
︎︎︎ A Desperate Adventure, and Courage and a Clock (Ensemble Zafraan)
︎︎︎ Crie (Véronique Serret, violin)
︎︎︎ Earth Plays V Ediacaran Fields (Basel Sinfonietta Danish premiere at KLANG Festival Copenhagen)
︎︎︎ Cathy Milliken on Soundcloud ︎
In the recording studio with Jocelyn B. Smith (radio play “Driving with Fatima” with texts by Fatima Dike, the first black South African woman to have a play published).