Mira Calix, the digital producer celebrated for her elaborate, highly imaginative audio and audio artwork, has died aged 51.
Her label, Warp Data, announced the information, and did not give a induce of demise. A statement posted to social media reported in aspect: “Mira was not only a massively proficient artist and composer, she was also a attractive, caring human who touched the lives of every person who had the honour of functioning with her … she pushed the boundaries concerning digital tunes, classical music and artwork in a definitely one of a kind way.”
Born Chantal Passamonte in South Africa in 1970, Calix moved to London in 1991 to go after a job in audio, first working as a publicist for Warp along with advertising club evenings and DJing, in advance of releasing her new music with the label.
As with her labelmates, her operate realised the wide alternatives of digital manufacturing in playful and adventurous music that had roots in club culture but spanned a remarkably broad stylistic selection, touching on ambient, sounds, neo-classical and much more.
She produced tunes in the common album format, beginning in 2000 with Just one on One and most not long ago with the sample-major Absent Origin, launched in 2021 and hailed as one of her finest works. But she also built music for installations these as My Top secret Coronary heart, staged at London’s Royal Festival Hall in 2008, and the monolithic sound sculpture Nothing at all Is Set In Stone, developed for the Cultural Olympiad along with the London 2012 Olympics, with Boris Johnson, then London mayor, stating: “Mira Calix has managed to wrest not blood, but music from a stone, placing the tunes into rock and making a new cultural attraction.” Other community artworks appeared everywhere from a general public bus in Nanjing, China, to the Tower of London.
She also collaborated with opera and theatre businesses, which include Opera North and the Royal Shakespeare Firm, producing scores for productions of Julius Caesar and Coriolanus for the latter. Her 2003 do the job Nunu showcased the sound of dwell bugs on stage, even though Within There Falls, a 2015 collaboration with Sydney Dance Firm, made use of hidden speakers worn by dancers in a cell, 4-dimensional piece.
She once said of her boldly experimental still populist approach, in reaction to aged listeners who beloved a single of her installations: “The whole piece was wholly summary, but it made them truly feel some thing. They did not say, ‘This is too weird’ … Men and women like fantasy. We know this. But folks also like fairytales. And they like abstractions. Artwork isn’t just for arseholes. People can cope with it.”
BBC 6 Songs DJ Mary Anne Hobbs was amongst those spending tribute to Calix, contacting her “such an ingenious, pioneering artist … normally questioning, constantly pushing.” The musician Gazelle Twin mentioned: “So so intestine-wrenching to hear this news of these types of an wonderful, inspirational and unanimously cherished creator.”