A “fearless, visionary and tremendously talented artist” (Sequenza21), Miranda Cuckson (she/her) 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, imagination, insight, and love for music, she is sought after as a soloist and collaborator. A violinist and violist, she performs internationally at venues large and small, concert halls, 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.
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. While remaining dedicated to the Western classical repertoire, Miranda has played countless concerts and premieres of new works, playing an inspirational role in bringing new creations more to the center of concert life.
She has released eleven albums to great 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.
Miranda teaches at the Mannes School of Music at New School University. She is an alumna of The Juilliard School, having studied there from Pre-College through her doctorate, and she was awarded Juilliard’s Presser Award.