Mira Calix

Chantal Francesca Passamonte (28 October 1969 – 25 March 2022), known professionally as Mira Calix, was a South African-born, British-based audio and visual artist and musician signed to Warp Records.

Calix was born Chantal Francesca Passamonte in Durban, South Africa on 28 October 1969.

She was raised in Durban in a liberal middle-class family of English and Italian descent.

She grew up learning ballet and listening to jazz and classical music.

In the late 1990s, Calix married Sean Booth, who is a member of electronic duo Autechre.

She moved to London in 1991.

She began to work at a record shop and took up organising parties and DJing.

She worked at the labels 4AD and Warp Records, where she held the position of a publicist from 1994 to 1997.

Although her earlier music is almost exclusively electronic, from the 2000s onwards she incorporated writing for classical instrumentation into her musical works and expanded her practice to include multidisciplinary performance, film and multi-channel installation artworks.

She often stated that she considered sound a sculptural material.

The two separated in the mid-2000s.

Calix's earlier music specialised in mixing her intimate vocals with jittering beats and experimental electronic textures and natural sounds.

In 2003, she collaborated with the London Sinfonietta for the first time.

Nunu premiered at the Royal Festival Hall in London at a concert titled "Warp Works and 20th Century Masters".

The piece then toured internationally, performed by live insects, orchestra, and Calix on electronics.

Subsequently, she incorporated orchestration and live classical instruments in her performances and recorded work.

She worked with visual artists and musicians from other disciplines to create music for dance, theatre, film, opera, and installations.

Calix was commissioned to write new works for the London Sinfonietta, Bang on a Can, the Aldeburgh Festival, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Opera North, Streetwise Opera, the Manchester International Festival, National Arts Festival, Sydney Festival, Royal Northern Sinfonia, and more.

In 2004, she formed Alexander's Annexe, a band/ensemble with pianist Sarah Nicolls and sound designer David Sheppard.

Their debut performance was at the Ravello Festival in Italy, followed by performances at the Aldeburgh Festival and Parco della Musica in Rome.

Alexander's Annexe released the album Push Door To Exit on Warp in November 2006.

Calix consistently titled her works and albums in lower case, having rejected capitalisation due to her introduction to the work of ee cummings as a child.

As a live performer and DJ, Calix supported and toured with Radiohead, Boards of Canada, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Autechre, and other artists.

She performed at Sonar, Glastonbury, All Tomorrow's Parties, Coachella, Latitude, and other concert halls and festivals.

Calix had a long history of creating works presented as installation, film, theatre, and dance, as well as more traditional concerts and musical performances.

She had a collaborative practice, often working with those from other disciplines, in particular the sciences.

These projects were commissioned by some of the world's leading institutions and were often presented as public artworks.

During 2007 there were two theatrical works; the first, an opera titled Elephant and Castle, for the Aldeburgh Festival, was a collaboration with composer Tansy Davies, directed by Tim Hopkins, libretto by author Blake Morrison.

The second, Dead Wedding, premiered at the first Manchester International Festival.

Extracts from these performances appear on the album The Elephant in the Room: 3 Commissions.

The album also includes pieces from a video installation work titled Natures, a collaboration with video artist Quayola and cellist Oliver Coates.

In early 2008, Calix was commissioned to set Shakespeare's "Sonnet 130" to music.

The project was curated by composer Gavin Bryars for The Royal Shakespeare Company.

In December 2008, My Secret Heart premièred at the Royal Festival Hall in London with 100 members of Streetwise Opera.

In December 2009, Calix won a British Composer Award for My Secret Heart.

It was described by the judges as "transformational, capturing raw humanity and giving voice to the disenfranchised in a sound-world which is original, absorbing and unsettling".

My Secret Heart also won a Royal Philharmonic Society Award in 2009 and was nominated for a National Lottery Arts Award in 2010.

The installation toured in other countries too, both with The Creators Project and The British Council.

In February 2009, she collaborated with United Visual Artists on Chorus for the opening of the Howard Assembly Rooms in Leeds.

The installation piece, inspired by Gregorio Allegri's 17th century choral work Miserere, is a collaboration with British video artists Flat-E.