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Violinist MIRANDA CUCKSON has received accolades from distinguished colleagues and audiences in the United States, Europe, and the Far East. She has performed as soloist with many orchestras, including the Indianapolis Symphony, Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia, the Virginia Symphony and the Long Beach Symphony (both with conductor JoAnn Falletta), the Asheville Symphony, El Paso Symphony, Owensboro Symphony, Lawton Philharmonic, Aspen Festival Orchestra (with Sergiu Commissiona), Shanghai Symphony, Beijing Radio Orchestra, and the Little Orchestra Society of New York at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. She also performed in Germany and Poland as soloist with the Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra conducted by Yakov Kreizberg, a tour that culminated in concerts at the Berlin Philharmonie and Berlin Konzerthaus. Her CD recording with the Czech National Symphony of concertos by Korngold and Ponce was released by Centaur Records to critical praise, and continues to be heard on radio stations across the United States.
Her second CD for Centaur Records, a recital disk of solo and violin/piano works by twentieth-century American composer Ross Lee Finney, was released in 2005. In 2006, she records solo and violin/piano music by Ralph Shapey. For these projects, she was awarded grants from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music and the Ditson Fund.
As recipient of the Juilliard School's Presser Music Award, Ms. Cuckson recently made her recital debut at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall. Among her other recitals are appearances at Kaufmann Concert Hall at the 92nd St Y, the New York Public Library's Bruno Walter Auditorium, the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., and the Myra Hess concert series in Chicago.
Her chamber music activities include appearances at the Marlboro, Bridgehampton, Focus!, Whynote (France), Kilkenny (Ireland), Divertimento (Istanbul), Salon des Arts Sofia (Bulgaria), Roaring Hooves (Mongolia), and Bodensee (Switzerland) festivals, Carnegie Hall's Elliott Carter/ Oliver Knussen workshop, Music at St. Paul's, the Austrian Cultural Forum, and the Italian Academy in New York. She has played in the Lincoln Center Summer Festival in chamber works by Salvatore Sciarrino, with John Adams in the inaugural concert of Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall, in a tribute to Mario Davidovsky at Symphony Space, in the reopening of the Summergarden series at the Museum of Modern Art, and in collaboration with engineers from IRCAM at Miller Theatre.
A highly active exponent of contemporary classical music, she often performs with New York-based groups and organizations such as the Argento Chamber Ensemble, Sequitur, counter(induction, Continuum, Glass Farm Ensemble, Composers Collaborative, ACME, Wet Ink, and Music Under Construction. Among Argento's projects have been her performance of the Berg Chamber Concerto in Weill Hall and recordings of works by Tristan Murail and Philippe Hurel on the Aeon label. With Continuum, Ms. Cuckson has toured abroad and has performed as solo violinist in a concert of Arvo Pþrt's music at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College. Her string quartet, the Momenta Quartet, is in residence at Temple University in Philadelphia, and has been presented in concert by the ISCM, the Austrian Cultural Forum, and Swarthmore College.
Ms. Cuckson has worked closely with many of the great composers of the present era. She has played the violin concertos of Elliott Carter, Henri Dutilleux, and Tobias Picker for the composers themselves, and she has worked with Pierre Boulez. Recently, she was featured as the surprise performer at a gala benefit for the American Composers Orchestra.
She is greatly interested in all forms of art and enjoys collaborative projects such as her appearances as soloist in Barber's Violin Concerto with the touring New York City Ballet, and her performance of the Stravinsky Violin Concerto on the Guggenheim Museum's ÒWorks and ProcessÓ series, as part of the Balanchine centennial celebration.
Ms. Cuckson was born into a family of musicians and lives in New York City. At the age of nine, she began her studies in The Juilliard School's Pre-College Division. She went on to receive her Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctorate degrees from Juilliard. Her teachers have included Robert Mann, Dorothy DeLay, Felix Galimir, and Shirley Givens, and she has studied chamber music with Fred Sherry and members of the Juilliard String Quartet. She teaches violin at the Mannes College of Music, Extension and Preparatory Divisions.
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