Biography
A dual-national Australian-New Zealand composer with a strong international presence, over the past 20 years Miriama Young’s chamber, orchestral and electro-acoustic work has been programmed by highly-respected ensembles and performers across the UK (including Scottish Opera), the USA (including So Percussion), Australia (including Sydney Symphony, Aura Go), Europe and New Zealand.
Her film soundtrack attracted awards at major festivals worldwide, her installations have been featured at Vivid Sydney, New York’s Puffin Room and New York’s Gallery 138, and radio work commissioned and premiered on National Public Radio (USA), the ABC (Australia), and Radio New Zealand. Strike: New Zealand Percussion Music was awarded Album of the Year in 2000, and she has represented New Zealand at the industry’s most significant worldwide event: International World Music Days Festival. She composes chamber and orchestral music, as as sound for interactive installations, film, dance, radio, Apps, live electronics, and fixed media. Her work seamlessly combines technology, soundscape, interactivity, field recordings, and sound art with live acoustic instruments, to produce unique sound worlds.
A Fulbright scholar, Miriama attained degrees from The New Zealand School of Music Te Kōkī, Victoria University of Wellington, and a PhD from Princeton University. Now based in Victoria, she teaches at the University of Melbourne Conservatorium of Music.
Composer website: http://www.miriamayoung.com/
Featured Works
Grey Ghost, for piano and electro-acoustic fixed media.
Grey Ghost is a meditation in piano and electronics, drawing on the ancient song of the once-prolific South Island Kōkako – The ‘Grey Ghost’ – of New Zealand. Live piano is accompanied by a soundtrack of transformed historic Kōkako recordings. During live performance, the soundtrack is streamed through the audience’s mobile phones, creating a unique forest of spatialised sound.
– Miriama Young
Featured in Piano Waves- October 2019