Future Classic Women Awards – Mira Calix, Metamorphosis

Hello and welcome to future classic Women Awards with me, Stefania Passamonte on women's radio station the program where we search for the most amazing new female artist on the classical panorama. Our guest today is the incredible composer Mira Kalyx, an award winning artist and composer based in the United Kingdom. Hello Mira. Hello. Ciao. Hello. Ciao. Good morning. Well, Mira is actually also, although we don't share the same name, she's my cousin. Met for the very first time here in London when you were performing a bfi. I remember very well, it was a festival, it was a mute animation movie and you were playing the live. The soundtrack of this incredible movie. The story was. It was a Hitchcock, early Hitchcock. So a silent film, Champagne. And it's about a kind of Paris Hilton kind of character. Like a super rich debutante whose father doesn't like her choice of men so he sort of takes away her inheritance and pretends that they've lost all their money in the 1920s crash. So it's sort of very contemporary and it was performed, it had sort of pre recorded instrumentation and electronics. And then a group called Juice, a vocal group, a trio of female singers who are non classical, which we'll talk about later as a record label. They did the performance and I did it a very strange version where I used. Because it's a silent film and so I used the lyrics of contemporary pop songs but rewrote all the music. There was quite a strange piece and that's the first thing I think you heard of mine. Absolutely, yeah, yeah. It was so strange. I just at the end of the concert I went and says, hi, I'm your cousin. So Mira, let's explain. I mean I recognized your face immediately because obviously we do have a family, a sort of familial look, I think so Mira. Well, because you are not, you were not united. Well, you were not born in Italy, you didn't live in. Where are you from, Mira? I'm from South Africa. So yeah, so I grew up in South Africa and moved to London and to England and yeah. So funnily enough, both of us got drawn here for different reasons. And yes, this is where we met and obviously we've. We are connected through our fathers and we have this musical connection. Our family is very musical. Yeah, it's incredible. I remember our auntie Zia Candida, she kept telling me, you have to meet Mira because she has this incredible group and I didn't know and she couldn't remember exactly the name. She was translating the name of this. Do you remember? But you didn't start with the classical. Let's say with. Yeah, you started with the electronics. Yeah. And then how did you do this process of going into becoming. Yeah, yeah. I mean it's. I'm completely self taught so I never studied music as such and I think so it's much more sort of DIY ethic. And I was really interested in electronic music. I'm signed to a label called Warp and quite exper. My first album is very experimental. I think we. Yeah, we can just safely call it experimental music. But I was always really loved classical instrumentation. I am funnily enough a frustrated non piano player in the sense that I studied dance as a kid. But I always wanted to study piano like my best friend. And I never did. I never had time. And I think actually that probably meant because I was doing ballet quite seriously, that meant that this sort of love of music was always there. But I didn't know how to play an instrument. But luckily for me it was sort of came through in the computer age and kind of using early drum machines and synthesizers and things. So that meant you could do things. I made music by ear, you know, that's how you. In a classical way. But then I released my first album on Warp in 2000 and I got a very nice email from one of the members of the Kronos Quartet. Wow. And yeah, and what was interesting is that somehow David, he heard something in what I was doing. I think he understood that really I wanted to work with real instruments but I didn't have have them the money or the know how. And there was a series of things that happened that gave me those opportunities. Another one of them was the London Symphonietta. Were working on a project with my record label with Warp. I think it was like 2003 or 4. And so I went to work with the London Symphonietta. And people who have end up working with throughout my career called Sound Intermedia who are principals with the Symphonietta but who works. Who are trained and work both with classical instrumentation and classical notation. And sorry in electronics. So I sort of learned by baptism of fire mainly my approach to everything is if I don't know how to do it, I say yes. And so slowly, slowly I kept getting commissions to work with. I worked with Opera north and how it was working then was I would write pieces by ear. So I was using MIDI for people who are familiar with that. And then I would work with someone who would help me basically transform that into written notation. And I would Always be given longer rehearsal periods because everybody knew I couldn't read or write music. But I could always talk and explain. I knew what I wanted. So that language barrier wasn't so much of a barrier. But in this course, and then I'll take a breath I in about 2010 got a very. Or maybe maybe a bit later, maybe I'm bad with time. Could have been 2012, but I got given this amazing grant by the Arts Council of England called Elevate and it which happened to fall in my region in East Anglia, which I. I don't think exists anymore. But this was an R D grant which I did through Auburn Music. And basically in that grant I exchanged and returned. That's what it was called with two composers, Larry Goad, two classical composers and Tansy Davies. The idea was I was already writing for ensembles and orchestras but I couldn't read or write any. I couldn't read what I was handing them. And so but I couldn't really go back to do grade one. I was in a really weird position. And so we sort of made this custom R and D grant where I learned to orchestrate and sort of the sidebar of that was that I started to use Sibelius and started to notate. So I do as of sort of the last maybe eight years or so write in fact everything you'll play today I've written myself, I've notated myself. So I'm self taught even in that, so to speak. Yeah, well that is incredible. Incredible. So I want first of all start to listen to the first track of today that is from Coriolanus and this La Corum and then we're going to talk about how Coriolanus and why we start with this piece. Satan. It. Wonderful. And this was Coriolanus by Mira Calix. I mean Locorum from Coriolanus by Mira Calix. Mira, what was this piece from? Was it with the Shaft company or. Yes, yes. So this is from the Royal Shakespeare Company staging of Coriolanus directed by Angus Jackson. This was 2017, so it's a part of the Rome season. And actually I did the score for Julius Caesar as well, which was at the beginning of the season and the year ended with Coriolanus. There were two other plays in the middle. Laura Mvula did the soundtrack for one of them. So it was this mixed program and actually Coriolanus is a very masculine play. And what with the Royal Shakespeare Company they insist on having live musicians and you can see them in the staging. So we did it at the Barbican, and obviously it ran for a good few months in Stratford Upon Avon. And actually, I'm saying this because I suddenly realized as it was playing that that is an all female string quintet who play all the pieces from Coriolanus. So they were the company of musicians that they obviously changed during the run. And that was so that we had this very visibly sort of feminine presence in the play against this very, very masculine play. And piece is called Lakarim. Coriolanus is quite interesting as a play without going into too much detail, but it's very much about location. And I said the score is basically a kind of war play in the sense that they're moving between different locations. And so each location had its sort of melody. Kind of working on this idea of the Japanese Tokyo Metro system where every tube station has an epimelody, so you kind of hear a melody and, you know you're at Oxford Street. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. So they have this system. And so this is what we used in the play. So we had different motifs for each of these different locations. And then between locations, as they were moving, it would be a combination of melodies. So I created this sort of very conceptual approach to the scoring of the play. Fantastic. Well, I didn't know about the Japanese tube station here in London. I remember when I came, I loved it for the first time to live in the uk, and I was living down in Oval, and every time I would take the Tube, there was the classical radio station on. And I love that. That I would take, you know, the escalator down to take the tube, listening to Mother Concerto or. And it was really relaxing for me, to be honest. Yeah, yeah. I think that's a bit like, you know, some stations, some of them write like, quote of the day, you know. Yeah. Down to the station master. Oh, really? And Oval. I know because I had a friend who lived at Oval, so I used to use the tube station quite a lot. And they always had classical music playing. I mean, ironically, I think original places did that, playing classical music to try and, like, stop teenagers gathering. But actually. Yeah, yeah, it can be used as a weapon in classical music. Yeah, that's very funny because, you know, after living in Noval, I decided to go. I went to live. I found a house. I was in a student house in Novel. And then when I finished being a student, I rented a house in Seventh Sister. And I had a group of teenagers that would gather in the front of our house because they knew that the house was lifted by the students or young workers. And so they would be there talking for hours and hours at night as well. That wasn't cool. And they listened to me practicing piano and they actually liked it. So out of the house running to teach or whatever and they would say, you know, I really like that with the stars coming down. And I know that the piece they intended was Chopin Scherzo with the. A lot of notes coming. Amazing. That's great. It didn't, you know, it wasn't a deterrent. It was actually something that they laughed listening to. It was quite fun. Exactly. So yes, I think it has the opposite effect. But I know that it was like a weird council's tried it for some reason at some point here if we play classical music, teenagers won't gather was the theory that's the problem. You know, sometimes people have the wrong perception of classical music because they think classical or I don't know what. Well, actually it's something that in everyday life it's in the advertising is in the children. It's basically the size of the epic movie, if you like. I think also, you know, one of the sort of main things is obviously, and this is where it has a lot in common with kind of electronic music or these are the connections is that it's mostly instrumental music. So you know, it is painting pictures without lyrics for the most part. I mean, obviously opera is a separate form. But if we think of classical music, we think of instrumental music and therefore it sort of leaves a lot of room to the imagination or it learns to tell stories, you know, Beethoven or Chopin or whoever, you know, telling stories but in a non lingual, you know, not using verbal language. So yeah, so that, and that is not dissimilar to dance music, you know, where lyrics are not a priority, you know, rhythm. Yeah, yeah. So I mean you said you had a training in ballet, so you were exposed to classical music then. Yes, exactly. So I think that's really where the love of it came and probably, you know, this idea of storytelling. So excuse me, I completely obviously as a kid, you know, fell in love with the drama of it all, I think. And you know, basically Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky are the big things you sort of hear when you do ballet, especially when you're super young. I mean I did it all the way through, but. And so I think, you know, the first thing I probably fell in love with was the Firebird, which is still one of my favorite pieces, you know, the beginning of that. And I think there again it's sort of like it's so, you know, if you hear things like that as a kid, they're so vivid. And I was also very lucky in that I did get to go to hear things live. That's another big difference, I think if you hear an orchestra live and kind of the power of that yes child, then it's very seductive, you know, so it's not alienating at all, actually, you know, so, yeah, I think it's. At which point you're exposed to these things. And, yeah, I was lucky in that I was exposed quite young. And definitely through dance, you also hear all kind of. I had quite a. An amazing Russian ballet teacher who was quite sort of. Of avant garde in her approach, quite modernist. So, you know, you're hearing all these kind of crazy things. And. Yeah, all this music that leaves lots of room because it doesn't have a lyrical context, but it does have these great stories, these big stories. Yeah. Now, you know, our comedy, it's incredibly artistic. I mean, dad was an incredible artist as well. And your music is actually going. I've seen installation with sculpture. There was this incredible installation during the. It was in the Olympic park with the voices from Africa. I mean, you've been traveling the world at the same time. I never managed to catch you, really. Unless in London. Never around. Yeah, obviously lockdown has meant that. But I have not traveled for, you know, four months, which I think is probably the first time in years to do it for quite a while. And I was like, okay, finally. I know this cannot go nowhere. So how is this relationship between your music and sculpture and art and. It's a big one, I think, because I think of music very much, or I think of sound. You know, it's a great distinction. You know, in the art world, people talk about sound. We obviously talk about music, but it's all the same thing. Ultimately, music is organized sound, if we want to put it that way. And if we think of that, I think. I think of it as a very visual or textual medium, as in, you know, frequencies seems sculptural to me. It's like we're carving it out. And if we go back to that thing of listening to the orchid, like going to a concert and hearing an orchestra, it feels very present. You know, really great concert. It feels like the music is sitting in the air above you. And so I think in that approach, to create sound, sculptures or sound works that you can step into or step around, be inside of really interests me. So a lot of the work I create is what we call multi channel, but in sort of Everyday terms, you might think of it as surround sound. But this idea of putting the listener within the musical sphere as opposed to just receiving it, you know, in a kind of stereo thing. Like we are now with this radio show. So something where. And I'm deliberately not using the word audience, you know, quite often use the word participant. And that seems like, oh, you're just being pretentious. But it's because an audience maybe is just receiving something and a participant is. You know, it's leaving space for them to be in the music. So I think that really interests me. And so a lot of my work, I'd say most of my work, it sort of lives in this installation context. And I use various mediums. So I make films or sculptures, as we talked about, the things that build an environment for the music. So I do straight concerts, but probably less so, you know what I mean? My music maybe exists more in this other plane. Yeah. Well, now, talking about experience, I'd like to listen to whole experience. I'd like to listen to Greenhouses. And then I'd like you to tell us more about this piece. If any of us had our lives completely strangled, live with children in a shrinking place where soldiers and tanks and borders could come for us at any moment and destroy all the green houses we have in cultivated for so long while some of us were beaten and held captive, do you think we might try to use violent me to protect whatever fragments remained? I think of this when I see orchards, my green houses and fruit trees destroy years of care Circumflex. I think of you. And how long it takes to make things work and what a labor of love it is. I really think in a sinless situation, most people would defend himself. At best, I think I would. Wow. And this was Greenhouses, a remix of Tansy Davis. Mira, where did this piece. How did you get the inspiration for this piece? Well, it's a remix of one of Tansy's pieces. So that, you know, it's. I guess, you know, it's my response to the original piece. And I sort of add my voice in that milieu. And I worked with the drummer, Brian Macomber, who was in a band called Dirty Projectors, of which I'm a huge fan. And I randomly met Brian and I was working on this remix. I think I wrote the rhythm section. He was based in New York at the time, so he was sending me the parts back. And that's kind of how it came about, you know, in the sense that when you're working with the remix you're really working with that existing material. And obviously Tansy's piece, it doesn't have any sort of clear rhythm. It's much softer. And I've rearranged the kind of order of things in the piece. It's different to making like a dance remix where you have maybe lots of. Of parts and you, you know, you can work quite differently to working with a classical remix, so to speak. Trying to think while it was playing how I met Tansy. And I can't really remember, but I. We've done quite a few things together and I talked about earlier, we. That's why I invited her to work on the other, you know, the research project. So I already knew her. And so, yeah, the text is from a letter, I believe, from Rachel Corey, who was an American activist who sort of died, was killed by bulldozer in that process. In that process of protesting. And so it has this very particular sort of feel to it. But, yeah, it's a piece. I've always really liked it. And maybe part of that is because it doesn't quite belong to anyone because it's this remix. And not only is it remix, it's collaborative work. Absolutely. And talking about that, you have been very active during the lockdown. So you're a super active person. First of all, you're never in just one place. And because of the lockdown, you've actually been forced stay home. But you didn't stay still. You've been doing a lot. I've been seeing you very active on the social media. You created this incredible mask. Would you like to tell us about that? Yeah. I mean, the joke is that they're called. This mask project is called Calyx against Covid, mainly because I like an alliteration and obviously don't plan to cure Covid by myself. But I started reading ironically, I was in China at the end of last year and I've spent a lot of time working there. So this thing of wearing face masks in Asia is very common. It is kind of. It's sort of a consideration of others. So if you're not feeling well, you wear a mask to stop germs spreading. Now, without being an epidemiologist, to me, this sort of made a lot of sense. And a lot of research has come out sort of showing that countries where mask adoption was high rates of infection have been much lower. I mean, dramatically lower. And there are lots of good reasons why you should wear a mask. I won't, you know, go into them all here, but I have done. I'm One of those people who does a lot of research. And so I was quite. I felt this was very important. I started wearing a mask. Actually, prior to lockdown, I was already wearing a mask, some of the ones I had from China. And while this was happening, I was making collages. I make collages a lot. And so I made some collages and I produced some samples, some masks. And so they come in three different sort of colorways and they're like a mixture. One of the masks is actually got cut up sort of masks in it and cut up pieces of the surgical gloves that we're all wearing and kind of wallpaper and magazine cut and artworks and stuff. And I really wanted to, you know, I thought this would be a lovely thing to do to try and raise some money for some, in particular smaller charities, because often, often we see, you know, big headlines and big charities get a lot of attention. And I decided I wanted to raise money for two charities and an advocacy group that I followed on Twitter and that I have had sort of awareness and involvement with for years. And I know that they do really good groundwork and they do it all year round. So it's not just about COVID but they work with. So Med act work with, you know, refugees and migrants and vulnerable individuals. They have like two clinics in South London, but they also, they campaign on climate issues and health care, things like the NHS surcharge and so small amounts of. Of money. They really have a huge impact. And the other is Doctors of the World, the UK branch. And they, again, they work on a very localized level, but a big international level. So it was a way of also trying to draw attention to the work these people do, which I think is brilliant. So it's about raising money and also raising awareness for them. Another project called Docs Not Cops, which is like NHS workers who bandied together to say they don't want to be immigration officials, they actually just want to treat people. And again, they've been campaigning on the NHS surcharge. And so, yes, I'm very politically outspoken. Anyone who follows me on Twitter knows that I use Caps Lock a lot. But these groups I felt very passionate about. And actually there's been such a nice reception to making these masks. They've come out exclusively through BLEEP which is affiliated with my record label, with Warp. So it's basically it's a shop where you can buy music, but they also do exclusive things. And you get a track that I made during lockdown called Lazy river, which is an audio visual project. Which uses kind of combinations. We're not going to play it. It sound very different on this station in this context. It's quite aggressive in many ways. Just using the contradiction of, like, the very quietness that lockdown brought. This sort of ability to hear nature, to have these quiet conversations on my daily walks. And then the kind of stream of, like, new terminology and stream and bubble sort of coming in through our phones or iPads or whatever, through these devices. And how lockdown was kind of very noisy in the world and then also very quiet. So, yeah, thinking about these things and trying to put something back and also, you know, keeping people genuinely, I think, safer. I think it's a kind of generosity of spirit to wear a mask. So I absolutely do advocate for that. Absolutely. I totally agree. What is incredible, and that's exactly what you said. It was the quietness, the silence that you could hear. You are up. Up in Suffolk, but here in the city, it was even more ghostly in a way, and beautiful at the same time. So haunting and beautiful. It was quite special. You would be able to go around the Covent Garden by bike without the risk of being killed by a car, for example, which is amazing. Without the noise of cars and without the people, you know, the noise of the tourists, the noise of the everyday life. And, you know, you would see the. The capital, like you've never seen it ever. Because since it was born, that has always been a center of, you know, trades and traveling and. And with people come noise. Yeah. And I think this was the incredible. For those of us who work with sound, but I think just for everybody, you know, what was amazing was suddenly, like I said, hearing the birds, you know, just. Just because also planes weren't really, you know, plane travel has obviously reduced, you know, if you're living in a city. And I think just maybe just being more aware of sound. I think, yeah, lockdown has kind of changed our relationship with sound. And then as the easing of lockdown has happened, sort of hearing more and more traffic sort of easing back in. And this kind of the noise is the indicator that the things are changing. Yeah. But, you know, in a way, I think it will be so strange to go back to normal. I don't think we're gonna go back to normal anymore. So far away at the same time, you know, the fact that you go, you know, out to a restaurant or to the cinema or to the theater or just to go. But at the same time, you know, and I don't think so, but I think also for our industry, I mean, this Is worth saying, you know, for creative industries that within that is music and arts and theater, this, you know, this is very difficult. We are. Well, in this country, not in other countries, but in this country, we will probably be the last to open. And, you know, so for a lot of our fellow musicians and cohorts is a very difficult moment for performers in particular, and how people earn a living and how big institutions survive this, you know, so there is an impact. I mean, probably, like me, we've quite enjoyed lockdown. But, yes, it will have a very. And it has had a very difficult impact on huge sectors. Yeah. You know, of the creative industries. Absolutely. Now, what's gonna be the first thing you're gonna do? Are you gonna travel again as soon as the lockdown finish or you're gonna be, in effect, you can travel so you can fly. And in a weird way, you've been able to do it all the way through in some shape or form. I know there are travel bans and so forth, but, you know, people have been moving around, I think, and it is not very environmentally sound, but I actually genuinely miss flying in the sense that I should this week, today, actually, I should be in Greece working on a project there, which is effectively being postponed. And so I think being able to, you know, very much consider myself a citizen of the world. Yeah, I think that, yeah, that is the thing that I've probably found more difficult than, like, going, like, not being able to go to Zara, which I don't really care about. You know what I mean? Yes. You know, it's interesting, all the pubs. So I think. Yeah. And also because I do have friends all over the world, you know, those relationships are personal, whether you're working with an ensemble or whatever. You know what I mean? So I think, yeah, that's the thing that has definitely been more difficult also. I think it's because a lot of the rest of Europe has already. We were late into lockdown. We are late out of lockdown in comparison. So what you're seeing on social media is, particularly in Greece, as I mentioned, you know, they had very few deaths. I mean, a handful of deaths in comparison, dealt with the virus very well. So, you know, their life has really returned to normal and ours is sort of. Now we're in this weird half life. Things will change even as this program comes out. So, yeah, it's. It's very strange. Well, now let's listen to Meno Lo Vento. That translates into without the wind. Yeah, Right, let's listen to it. Ra. Ra. K. Sa. Sam. Ra. How beautiful. And this is the piece that my daughter Lucia kept singing over and over again. I don't know why. So where does this piece come from? Did you write the lyrics? I didn't. I managed to find Coriolanus, kind of opens with a famine, and there's a famine, and the super elite don't give a damn, really, that the people are starving. And so it was trying to find some text, and I did loads and loads of research, and I managed to find and the date of this text. It's a poem, so I was looking for Roman or sort of. I was generally looking at Italy, but just trying to find text that might relate to wheat. The play itself sort of opens basically. I mean, it had this modernist twist, but it's opening with sort of moving of wheat or the sort of storing of wheat, kind of letting the people starve. And so I was trying to find anything relating to famine or, you know, failed crops or, you know, it's just really hunting, hunting. And I found this piece of text, this poem, which obviously, in the context of the play, fits perfectly. It is talking about basically a sort of failed season of crops. You understand the text and very loose terms. And so it fitted perfectly. It was obviously out of copyright. Nobody knows even where it, you know, who wrote it. Yeah, and. Yeah, but I thought it was. I thought it was really beautiful and fitting and obviously then upset it. Yeah. Created a piece and we were looking for something that was a very. It's very dramatic and it has quite a classic sort of aria, kind of plantations. Because this. Actually, this piece is used in sort of the main fight scene. So it's quite filmic within the play. But hopefully with these pieces, you know, because you've chosen to play two pieces from Coriolanus, in a way, hopefully they exist kind of beyond the play. But. And in a way, I had a lot of freedom with. With Angus, with my director, in that he sort of allows me space to create my own narrative, you know, for the music within the. Within the plays. Because Shakespeare really doesn't give you. You know, these plays, they always had music, but, you know, they would have probably been played on a lyre or whatever, you know, they would have been. And it would have been music for people to walk on and walk off to, you know, so in plays was kind of used in a very sort of minimalist way while here with these plays and in fact, use musical motifs to connect Julius Caesar and Coriolanus. Instrumentation for Julius Caesar was very different. It was all brass. They yeah, he gave me this sort of place to make my own stories in order to make the kind of music come alive myself. Beautiful. Now, this is the last part of our interview, and it's the time when I ask sort of the odd question. So do you have any strange hobby to free your mind or relax? Although you do so many things that I don't think you have time to do to free your mind? I guess I free my mind probably in the most basic of ways. I mean, there are two things. I really like to walk, which I think you mentioned. So I do a lot of walking, and there's a long history of composers walking. I think. I think better if I'm physically active. So I find it difficult to think without moving. I have to move. My boyfriend said that means I'm a kinetic thinker, which I think just sounds nice, which is why I'm saying it. It just makes it sound like, you know, you've got. Meanwhile, it's like, actually, I just need to move. But probably the thing I do, I consume, like a kind of stupendous amount of box sets. So actually, if I want to switch off, I kind of just numb my brain with, you know, whatever's happening on Netflix and Amazon, and they can't make them fast enough for me. I mean, I probably devour at least. At least one boxer a week, sometimes two. So, yeah, I'm very quick. I don't sleep a lot, and I. I consume a lot. But that is how I switch off. Off. That's very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I same. I have to watch television, in particular, comedy. I need something that is really, you know, taking me. Take my mind. Yeah, yeah, Lily. Because otherwise we're always thinking, isn't it? It's. Sometimes it's too much. Sometimes it's too much. And I know it's weird because I find a lot of peace in nature. I love the feel of, like, grass under my feet. But I don't know if I really switch off nature. I'm actually switch on. Yeah. That makes me think more, actually. You get it. It's beautiful. And you're thinking, gosh, why can't we do this and that? And that's all. That doesn't really. Because it gives you space and silence to think. So actually, if I'm trying not to think, I basically listen to other people's stories. I do a lot of audible as well, so I listen. I like people reading me books. That's another favorite thing. Yeah, yeah. All right, now, do you have any embarrassing moment or funny that you can recall. I know you. You set me up on this one. And I was like, I don't know. Actually, I don't think it's embarrassing. I got. I'm trying to think of embarrassing. All funny moments, but I think, you know, probably a lot of the. So I created this piece called Nunu, which performed all over the world with the London Symphonietta. And nunu means. It basically is the Zulu word for insect. So growing up, you just say nunu and you just meant any bug, whether it was crawling or flying and so forth, really. And, yeah, so just like a common. A term to kind of go, noo, noo. You know, there's something. And it's a little bug and. Or a big bug. And it's so funny because in French, the word sounds very childish, like, you know, les nour, it's the little teddy bear or the little doll that you go to sleep with. Very tender. It's so opposite. Well, I think when you grow up with a lot of insects, you kind of either are indifferent or you quite like them, because, you know, I grew up somewhere subtropical. So there's a lot of insects. So this piece is performed with live insects, with crickets, so about 300 or so crickets. And they are in. Basically in a fish tank with little cameras and they have little microphones. And the orchestra kind of take on the role of the sound of insects. The insects keep the rhythm, but it's also working with sort of a tape part, which is where the melody, which sounds very string like, all comes from wasps. Anyway, that is a complicated piece. But whenever, you know, performing that around the world, we've had all sorts of sort of incidents because there is a technical rider for the insects. Yeah. Remember, this entire program seems to keep coming back to Rome, but we did a performance in Citta della Musica in Rome, and it was being broadcast live on the radio. And after the insect piece, someone stood up and started shouting, but I didn't really pay any attention. We were leaving the stage. It was very odd anyway, but I don't know, because I think I'm used to also playing in clubs and whatever. I mean, obviously, it's completely bizarre. But as I realized as I came off the stage, this turned out to be a very famous Italian animal activist who chosen this moment to protest about the. About animals, which turned out to be great in my case, in the sense that I'm a committed vegetarian. And insects, they don't live very long, but we do look after them. You know, they're fed and Watered. But their natural life cycle is quite short. And so, yes, we had this sort of crazy moment of interruption. But I kind of, for someone like me that was like, like, oh, you know, people like, oh, did that upset you? And I was like, no good on them, you know, fantastic. That's exactly what I was thinking, how hard it was to transport this. These animals, these insects of the world. We don't. We don't. So, yeah, so in every country they're localized. So like in Singapore, where insects effectively have been eradicated. I mean, they've worked very hard. Yeah. You know, Singapore has a very strange environment. And so quite often then the concert hall would work. It was the same in Tallinn. They would breed. Remember that these insects are often used for food for reptiles. So actually they are quite often. We're saving them from just being eaten by snakes and lizards and so forth. But so then they would come through that source. Then we had a problem in Paris because there was a stridovirus in the building. So we weren't. Because of insurance, we weren't. There's any place where we were not allowed to have live insects. And so we actually made a film for that one because the insurance was too risky to bring insects for fear that anything escaped. Although, yeah, we weren't using any insects that would have eaten wood. But anyway, so, yeah, so lots of insects apart from eating wood. I mean, you get the wasp coming out and they go. And I mean, for the live version, we only use crickets Pray mantis. So yeah, so I mean, we're not really using. We're not using any live. Well, talking of which, let's listen to the last piece of today. And that's Metamorphosis. Metamorphosis number one. And this was Metamorphosis first by Mira Kalyx. If you have any questions that you would like to ask to our guest or nomination for our future Classic Women Awards, please email presenters@womensradiostation.com or tweet us @womensradio. Again, a big thanks to our guest composer Mira Kalix for the great chat and the extraordinary music play today. Mira has been too short. Thank you. I. I think the longest conversation we've had. I know. Well, if you would like to listen to feature Classic Women Awards on women's radio station is live every day at 10am and 10pm London time. You can listen to this episode again or catch up on our previous programs. Heading to my presenter page, Stefania Passamonte Future Classic Women Awards on womensradiostation.com. thank you for listening.