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Cynthia Millar

ondes martenot

About this Artist

Described by The Observer as the “unchallenged sovereign of the Ondes Martenot,” Cynthia Millar has most recently appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Nashville Symphony Orchestra, and NHK Symphony Orchestra. Cynthia began the 2021/22 season with a performance of Richard Rodney Bennett’s Ophelia with Iestyn Davies and Aurora Orchestra at Kings Place, London.

Cynthia’s most performed work, Messiaen’s large-scale Turangalîla-Symphonie, makes a spectacular post-pandemic return with some of the top orchestras around the world during the 2022/23 season. Cynthia will be performing with the Berlin Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Brussels Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, and London Symphony Orchestra, among others.

In 2016, Cynthia premiered the ondes martenot part specially written for her by Thomas Adès in his opera The Exterminating Angel at the Salzburg Festival, and subsequently at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera, and the Royal Danish Opera in March 2018. The 2016/17 season also saw her take part in a 10-concert tour of the Turangalîla-Symphonie with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and Gustavo Dudamel, beginning in Caracas and culminating in a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall, New York.

Cynthia studied the ondes martenot with John Morton in England and Jeanne Loriod in France. Since her first performance of the Turangalîla Symphonie at the 1986 BBC Proms with the National Youth Orchestra under Mark Elder, she has played this piece around 200 times with some of the world’s leading conductors, including Simon Rattle, Sakari Oramo, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Franz Welser-Möst, Paavo Järvi, Susanna Mälkki, Andrew Davis, and Mariss Jansons.

Cynthia has recorded the Turangalîla-Symphonie with the Bergen Symphony Orchestra under Juanjo Mena; and the Trois petites liturgies with the Seattle Symphony under Ludovic Morlot and the London Sinfonietta under Terry Edwards. She has played in well over 100 film and television scores and has written music for film, television, and theater, including scores for Robert Wise, Arthur Penn, Martha Coolidge, and Peter Yates.

Cynthia holds dual British-U.S. citizenship.