Cathy Milliken

Cathy Milliken was born in Brisbane in 1956. The Berlin-based Australian is a composer, performer, and music educator who embodies a comprehensive approach to music in cross-genre projects spanning new music, music theatre, and participatory, intercultural forms.

After studying oboe, piano, and composition at the University of Sydney, Milliken continued her training in Europe with Heinz Holliger and Maurice Bourgue. Her close collaboration with Ensemble Modern, of which she was a founding member and performer until 2007, was crucial to the development of her multifaceted work. For years with the group, she was not only an oboist and composer but also an innovator of concert forms and experimental production methods. From 2005 to 2012, she headed the Berlin Philharmonic’s education programme and developed influential educational projects. From 2014 to 2020, she established new interdisciplinary training models as artistic director of the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) in Melbourne.

Cathy Milliken’s work exemplifies the idea of artistic innovation combined with an ethos of social responsibility. She composes for renowned orchestras and contemporary music ensembles as well as for amateur ensembles, writes for music theatre and concerts, for radio, film, and electronic media, and develops installations and site-specific performances. Her pieces are often created in close collaboration with local performers and communities in order to dissolve the boundaries between composer, performers, and audience. Virulent social issues (such as identity, migration, and the environment) are the focus of multi-layered soundscapes. Milliken understands music as an open process of shared experience, and composing as a living part of social reality.

Milliken has received commissions for compositions and participatory performance projects worldwide, including from the Donaueschinger Musiktage, the Ruhrtriennale, the Munich Biennale, Klangspuren Schwaz, ZKM Karlsruhe, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Salzburg Festival, the Berlin State Opera, musica viva, the Southbank Centre London, the Umculo Festival (South Africa), the Venice Biennale, and Future Labo (Japan). From 2018 to 2020, she was composer in residence with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.

Cathy Milliken has received numerous awards, including the Prix Marulic in 2012, the Prix Italia in 2015, the Paul Lowin Orchestral Prize in 2016 (for Earth Plays), the YAM Award in 2018, the International Opera Award in 2019 (for Romeo’s Passion), the Australian Art Music Award in 2021, and Excellence in Classical Music at the Australian Women in Music Awards in 2025.