Cassandra Miller’s celebrated viola concerto I cannot love without trembling received its Canadian premiere from Lawrence Power and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and Elim Chan on 13 and 14 May. The 25-minute work was co-commissioned by BBC Radio 3, Brussels Philharmonic, Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, and Scottish Chamber Orchestra, supported by The Viola Commissioning Circle. The orchestra will return to Miller’s work in November 2026, when they present the Canadian debut of Dad Goes to the Mountain, her forthcoming orchestral work, conducted by Tianyi Lu.
Miller's writing is profoundly original. It compels us to listen closely and often treats the orchestra as a decorative partner or a setting for this alto voice that sings with a tremulous quality. It's a work of the infinitesimal, developing original universes…
Le Devoir (Christophe Huss) 15 May 2026
I cannot love without trembling takes its title from the writings of Simone Weil and draws on the music-making of Epirot violinist Alexis Zoumbas, who left his mountainous homeland in Greece for the United States. Recordings of his improvised, lamenting moiroloi, the funeral music associated with the women of Epirus, is another creative impetus for the work.
It is cast in one unbroken span with five sections: four verses and a concluding cadenza, each titled after a quotation from Weil. Writing in The New Yorker, Alex Ross commented, “the atmosphere of lamentation is engulfing…you could hear the work as one more apocalyptic lullaby for an anxious age…This is music that reminds us how to cry.”
Power also presented the piece at the Barbican with Collegium and Simon Crawford-Phillips on 7 May, as part of the immersive multimedia concert experience Darkness Visible. A journey through the City of London after dark, it was conceived with film director Jessie Rodgers and the creative studio Âme, and concluded its programme of works by Dowland, Bach (arranged by Anders Hillborg), Mozart, and Jonny Greenwood with the concerto.
Best of all [was] the closer…An extended lament, it plays with the in-between spaces: between notes, soloist and ensemble, people. Power bends time and pitch, sometimes in dialogue with the cloudy, slow-phase blocks of orchestral sound, at others in a strange duet for one – his answering voice reduced to a single repeatedly plucked pitch…mesmerising…
The Guardian (Alexandra Coghlan) 8 May 2026
…an intense, lamenting piece full of repeated orchestral incantations and impassioned, modal outbursts…A gripping climax…
The Times (Richard Morrison) 8 May 2026 ****
The concerto premiered with Lawrence Power and the Brussels Philharmonic in 2023, receiving its UK debut from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Power, with a subsequent appearance at the 2024 BBC Proms in 2024. In January 2026 it made its Swiss debut with the Basel Sinfonietta and Geneviève Strosser, conducted by Elena Schwarz; in November 2026 it will receive its French premiere from Power and the Orchestre National de Lille. Outside of the concert hall, it has made an impact as a dance work, choreographed to acclaim in 2025 by Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber for GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, as part of the double bill Dusk till Dawn.
Miller has been announced as the BBC Philharmonic’s Composer-in-Residence for the 2025/26 season. The orchestra will present the UK premiere of Dad Goes to the Mountain in March 2027; in October they present Swim, which draws equally from the work of Robert Schumann and Anne Carson, conducted by John Storgårds. In February Sean Shibe and Naomi Woo join the orchestra’s strings for guitar concerto Chanter, inspired by the Scottish smallpipes player Brìghde Chaimbeul; Shibe has previously presented the dreamlike, folk-inflected piece with Dunedin Consort, Australian Chamber Orchestra, and Royal Northern Sinfonia.