“It’s all about nurturing, being gentle and patient. Sometimes it’s knowing that things take a little bit longer for them to reveal themselves.”
Millicent B James
PRXLUDES is delighted to be launching our “5 for 5” Commissioning Initiative: our commitment to commissioning five early-career composers at the forefront of contemporary music in the UK, to celebrate five years of PRXLUDES’ work promoting and celebrating the most exciting new voices in contemporary music.
Our first “5 for 5” Commissioned Composer is Millicent B James, whose new work ‘Snow Sprites’ will be premiered by our ensemble partners Standard Issue on 5 February in London, at the launch party of PRX.LIVE — our flagship concert, touring, and commissioning series as part of The Hinrichsen Foundation’s Multi-Year Partnership. Millicent’s commission has been generously supported by the Vaughan Williams Foundation.
PRX.LIVE launches at Folklore, Hoxton, on Thursday 5th February — tickets are currently available here, and we’d love to see you there.
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Millicent B James is an award-winning composer, arranger, performer and artist who combines gospel, jazz cinematic and afro-futurism to create a myriad of sonorities in her music. Millicent’s music has been commissioned by Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Sister Music, NMC Recordings, and Spitalfields Music Festival, among many others; she was a National Youth Choir Young Composer in 2023-24, and she recently performed her new commission ‘Come Show them the River’ with the CBSO at Birmingham Symphony Hall, receiving high praise from the Guardian and the Telegraph. Millicent studied at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, graduating in 2021 and being awarded the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Composition Prize; she is currently studying for a Masters at the same institution.
This year, Millicent is the first of PRXLUDES’ “5 for 5” Commissioned Composers — our commitment to commissioning five early-career composers at the forefront of contemporary music in the UK. Millicent’s commissioned work ‘Snow Sprites’, for flute, viola, and cello, will be premiered by Standard Issue at our PRX.LIVE Launch Party on 5 February in London. Ahead of the premiere, Patrick Ellis caught up with Millicent to talk about getting closer to nature, slowing down, Zelda, folk influences, and more…
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Patrick/PRXLUDES: We first interviewed you back in 2020 — what has happened over the past five years?
Millicent B James: There’s so much that has happened, which is great. -laughs- In 2021 — shortly after Zyggy had interviewed me — I was finishing my undergraduate degree and I was in the process of working on my major project for my final year. Nowadays, I am way more developed as a composer and songwriter. I’m getting more confident in myself. Having said that, it has been quite tough the last few weeks. Starting a [new] piece is a really difficult process and a difficult feeling: do we go somewhere that’s familiar? Or do we go somewhere that’s exploring new waters?
I’ve been very much a deep thinker for a while — but from around 2024, I started to come into myself a bit more through the National Youth Choir scheme with Will Harmer, Alex Tay, and Emily Hazrati. It was a lovely experience: us four composers being so similar [in terms of personality]. I’ve never gotten along with people so well instantly. There were no icebreaker moments; I just felt like my authentic self.
What were you doing in the years prior to that? Was there anything that was really impressionable for you?
In the years prior, I had worked a few jobs and I was confused with what I wanted to do. I worked in London for a bit [October 2021-April 2022], which was great and I learnt so much there, but it was difficult. However, it is part of the line of development; it’s not always going to be pleasant to experience, but it’s about what you take from it and how you bring it into future things — as well as how to cope with things when it doesn’t go to plan.
After my undergraduate, I felt that I needed to take a break from writing. I was at the point where I was constantly questioning everything that I was doing; asking myself if it was good enough, or if it was too similar to everything else that I had written. I think now, I see my writing as like a diary entry; I love a chord progression, and if it feels uplifting, then it’s quite an exhilarating feeling to stay in that space. Regardless of how long the idea is — it might be two minutes, but it might capture that emotion there.
Funnily enough, when I was working in London, Birmingham started calling me back… -laughs- At this point in time, I’m now in the final year of my Masters’ [at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire], which — as my uncle said — is “returning to the scene of the crime”… -laughs- I went back because it is a comfortable space for me — I know everyone, I know all of the teachers there, I know the general vibe, and I didn’t want to go anywhere else. It’s been really helpful just to be back in a familiar place.
Having said that, I don’t live in Birmingham anymore. I’m now based between Lichfield and Cannock, there are deer everywhere — it is a really lovely place to live. I grew up in Staffordshire, so it is kind of a familiar place to me too.
What do you feel have been some of your main developments as a composer and songwriter throughout this time?
It’s quite hard to pin down. I have my “signature” in my music; when people who know me listen [to my work], they are like “oh that chord is definitely Millicent — of course she would do that”. -laughs- Where I am right now, I am close to Chasewater Reservoir, which is three times of the size of Edgbaston Reservoir [in Birmingham]; there is lots of space to explore and appreciate the small things in nature — such as looking at a little piece of bark and examining the different textures — rather than bundling up in bed because I have overwhelmed myself. I’m much less anxious now, compared to five years ago, which is great. I’m 27 now and so there has been quite a lot of development since that time.
So I think that my main development now is that I am now more patient with myself when it comes to starting pieces. When I was younger, the ideas used to flow so easily — I used to write pieces in a few days — but now I will be sat at the computer for three hours and I wouldn’t have written more than a few bars of material. Whereas before, I would have written half a piece in that time… What’s going on? -laughs-
I guess I am more of an “adult” now, and responsibilities have shifted a little. I guess that we have to spend a bit more time sitting at the computer, or sitting at the piano, and figuring things out. Even if I am just playing a chord, what happens if we just move one of those notes down a semitone or if we go somewhere else? I would also say that rather than thinking of sticking to keys, I’m now more modal in my expression; which is nice because it adds a bit more colour.
Do you think that being based outside of Birmingham, or a major city, has had an impact on how you feel when working?
Usually, at this time in the past, I would be a bundle of sadness and feel really anxious — whereas now, I’m managing everything a lot better. Being close to nature and away from the city and the stress that comes with it… I sometimes feel that I can just breathe a lot more easily.
I guess you must also be a lot more experienced and aware of everything surrounding you…
I was thinking about this on the train the other day; everything is just so oversaturated. It’s all a bit overwhelming. Learning how to switch all of that off and then allowing the ideas to come back in… It’s like gardening: you plant a seed, you water it, and then hope that it comes up — and that the supermarket haven’t robbed you of however much you have paid for your packet of seeds. -laughs- It’s all about nurturing, being gentle and patient. Sometimes it’s knowing that things take a little bit longer for them to reveal themselves.
I will often start with one sketch, and then be like “no, we will shelve that idea”. I never delete anything; I just leave it on my computer, and then it’s for the future me to stumble across when I’m bored or out of ideas. Sometimes, we are not ready to tackle that boss battle yet, and so we will put it to the side. -laughs- I gamify so many things in my brain at the moment, which makes it a lot easier to deal with. So I will do one sketch of something, and then I will go to the forest for a bit and then try to find some deer — which is a nice thing to do. Those kinds of things are often helpful with getting ideas as I’m getting away from the desk.
Has your approach to composition lessons changed at all?
I’m more brave when it comes to showing unfinished sketches to my teachers. Before, I was thinking that I had to have a substantial amount of material to show them. Nowadays, I’m generally less scared to show unfinished works in progress.
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Earlier you talked about comforts and returning to familiarity, would you say that has aided your creativity, despite adult life slowing down the process?
I think that it helps me to be a bit less in my head when working on a piece or before lessons. We are all human — it doesn’t have to be finished — and there are no expectations for it to be finished either.
Where I live now, I don’t really know anyone at all. I just picked this place because it is close to Birmingham, but it is also closer to home; and when I turned up for the viewing, I thought that it was quite nice. The property was completely unfurnished and I didn’t know anyone, but I thought “let’s go for it”. -laughs- Having more of that mindset — “let’s just go for it, let’s just see what happens” — while also having those familiar things to go back to, can often help me to reignite my creative brain. Like, okay, now we are in this familiar space, we can explore out of that and just see what happens if we go in that direction down that path. It is nice to be in a familiar spot, but with the knowledge that I have gained from other places and the surprises that we have seen along the way.
When I am overwhelmed, I will go outside, and I will stand outside and I will look up at the sky — even if there is nothing there on an overcast day (as it has been so often recently). Sometimes, there’s a really beautiful break in the clouds; or it’s completely clear and in the distance, you see a little plane that’s just going across the sky. Those kinds of things make me less overwhelmed and more grounded again; which means that I will then be able to go back to rework and figure out things in the composition I’m working on.
Here, my nervous system is more relaxed. I think that I’m actively talking to myself a little bit, just to see “we know that this is a familiar place, what happens if we do this — suddenly moving to another tonality — [or] why don’t we add a semitone in a place where we don’t usually put it”. [Usually I plan] a starting plot, a map that we will have to take — maybe [a] check point over here, it will accidentally take us all the way over here, and now we have to kind of find our way back through this. It’s like a weird puzzle. Sometimes, you don’t know which way you will go or what it wants to look like.
Are there any methods you’ve found to overcome roadblocks in your process?
When I’m stuck, I sometimes listen to the material quite a lot; rather than listening to anything else, I will just focus on that, so that I am fully immersing myself in that sound world. And then something might happen where I will have heard something within it, and I will go back to the workspace and work out what that little glimmer of light is. It’s a really strange thing. Whenever my mum asks me “how does your brain work?”, I say “I don’t know, but I just go with it”. -laughs-
Having said that, I tend to figure things out in a more logical way than I used to. When I started composing, it was therapy that got me into it. The counsellor that I had at the time said to me “you’ve said that you like writing words and little stories — why don’t you try writing music?”. And so I wrote a piece about me running through the fields like Zelda, travelling across the world — and now we’ve come across a summit village, so I wondered what that sounded like: is it icy? Is it all sorts of other things? I think that’s where my logic comes from when being a composer. And then adding songwriting to it: how do we write the words for that? Do we make it obvious what the subject matter is that we are talking about? Or do we hide it a little bit to allow other people’s interpretations?
Tell me a bit more about how you channel these inspirations through your process — particularly when they come from external sources? I understand you recently wrote a piece for The Sixteen…
Sometimes I know instantly what the piece is going to sound like. When writing for The Sixteen, that piece used a liturgical text. That was a big challenge, because I wanted to be respectful to those word; [but] for the intro, I knew that I wanted to be in a certain mode and key to geographically fit what the text was.
The words were: “it was too much, I cried out, woe is me, for I am lost, a man of unclean lips, who with his mortal eyes has seen the Lord”. When writing this piece, I was on my way to LA — which was ten and a half hours — a long time to just sit and think with the mindset of “we’ve got ten and a half hours to write this piece, where do we go?”. I saw that someone in front of me was watching Dune: Part Two and I thought to myself, “I like the modes that they use in that film, so let’s see if there’s anything that sticks out from there” — and within six minutes of watching the film, I thought “right, turn that off — we’ve got it!”.
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We are so excited to be commissioning you as our first “5 for 5” Commissioned Composer. Tell me a bit about your new work, ‘Snow Sprites’, and what’s inspired it?
The piece is for flute, viola and cello. It’s a nice combination! A while ago, I saw a few of my friends perform in a wind quintet, playing an arrangement of ‘The Shire’ from The Hobbit… -Millicent proceeds to sing the melody from The Hobbit- It is really cute! So I am wanting to create a similar kind of vibe” going on an adventure, going into the forest, let’s-see-what-I-find kind of thing.
I have been wanting to write a lot of folk music recently — and quite a few of my friends are in folk bands. Over the festive period, I have been wanting to write more folky tunes; every time I hear or happen to see a jam session, it’s so nice to listen to people jamming along to a melody. It is so uplifting to be sat in that room with musicians adding their own input to the tune. So for my piece, I want to recreate that vibe — people making music together.
Is the material quite improvisatory? Or are you taking a melody and passing it around the three performers?
Yes, I have written the material in, but they are guidelines. I am encouraging them to be improvisatory with the melody or rhythms if they feel that they could add a little bit more; in a way, it’s also their piece too, and then whatever happens, happens. It’s the same in a jam session — if someone plays a new idea, then it’s like “looks like we are going to G!”.
Have you incorporated many improvisatory elements into your music in the past?
When writing for my jazz band for my two EPs, Moyo Vols. 1 & 2, there was a fair amount of improvisation there. Jazz musicians have got a lot of greatness that they could add to it — whenever there was a solo, they had been given chords and the repeat bars where they were encouraged to play whatever they feel. Sometimes, someone might have played an extra eight bars… As Bob Ross says, there can be these “happy little accidents” that come out of these improvisatory moments. It’s just cool to let people add their own little flair to the piece.
Similarly, when I worked with the National Youth Choir on ‘Children of the Forest’, there was a section where the singers had to make a woodland sound, and [during the workshops] I demonstrated the sounds that they could do. However, because they each chose a different effect, in the end there were too many sounds; it was a very urban forest, which is quite funny as many of the choir were from London and the surrounding areas. -laughs- They were very London forests, where everything was going off at once…
‘Snow Sprites’ is being premiered by Standard Issue at our PRX.LIVE launch party on Thursday 5th February. Compared to your vocal music, how do you write for instruments?
I enjoy having to figure out what works well and what doesn’t necessarily work well. Maybe there’s something that I forgot, or could have considered a bit more with this instrument. To give an example, if I wrote for the bass clarinet, I ask myself “have I written for the instrument reasonably?” — because I might forget about the break point, [or] written around the register where it could be a bit hazardous and it’s hard for the player.
I’m always really grateful to anyone that plays my music, and I want everyone to feel comfortable when playing. If anything is written unidiomatically, then it is always good for the composer to know. If it’s a conscious thing that you want it to be then great — but if you didn’t want it to not sound perfect, and you had another instrument that could have done that line — for example a saxophone instead — then it’s just something to learn for next time. If you are writing with software/MIDI, it won’t tell you that there is a break point, or accurately play how it is going to sound.
How have you found working with this lineup?
With this line up of flute, viola and cello, I’ve written for these instruments before — not this combination though. The ranges of the instruments cover a lot of ground, and I’m looking forward to this challenge. When it comes to writing for strings, there are so many things that you can do. -laughs- I am a cellist and I’ve not played my instrument for quite some time. There are so many techniques that I could use and explore, but for the most part, I’m yet to really use them; again, I could just get out my cello, sit and experiment, but my own fears get in the way of my own capabilities sometimes. So I think that is something that I would like to trial a bit more — but I don’t want to throw too many extended techniques into the soup at once!
Growing up, I listened to a lot of recorder sounds [and] bamboo flute — [and soundtracks of] video games such as Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Even with those sounds that they have, the tradition which they play [is] really cool. It’s something that I would love to experiment more with. I’m sure that this piece has different familiarity hubs — or maybe the transitionary hubs are going to overshadow the familiar ones. So there’s lots to explore!
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Our PRX.LIVE launch party, featuring the world premiere of Millicent B James’ new work ‘Snow Sprites’, takes place on Thursday 5 February at Folklore, Hoxton, London – learn more and buy tickets at:
Learn more about Millicent B James and her practice:
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[…] Aileen Sweeney and a new commission, supported by Vaughan Williams Foundation, Snow Sprites by Millicent B James. The evening will include an introduction from Zygmund de Somogyi, artistic director of PRXLUDES, […]