E/A Duo with Richard Barrett
2026 Modular Fields, new compositions for violin, harp, voices, theorbo and viola da gamba, SH Den Haag // Third space, new composition for Ensemble Bruit, Lucerne (CH)
2024 Neutrino Bath, space opera, iii, Den Haag// Evan Parker’s Electroacoustic ensemble, Essen Philharmonie // Wien Modern Festival, Celeste, Vienna, Improvised trio with Elisabeth Harnik // Residency at Twin Cities, USA //
2023 Bangor Music Festival, Wales
2022 Duo performance at World Harp Congress in Cardiff, Wales
About the duo
Milana and Richard have been performing together internationally since 2013, either as a duet or with various musicians and ensembles across Europe, in the US and Australia. They have held masterclasses and lecture/recitals at music conservatoires and universities in Minneapolis (University of Minnesota), Los Angeles (CalArts), Birmingham (Conservatoire), Buffalo (US), London (Guildhall school of music and drama), Leeds University, RNCM (Manchester), Budapest and Singapore. They were working within Collective Studio 6 for a number of years, curating and producing many programs and several international tours. close-up, a large scale work composed by Richard and creatively realized by Ensemble Studio 6, has been released in 2025 (Sargasso)
Richard has written three solo pieces for Milana, in which he contributed to the existing harp repertoire with new vocabulary and insights into the possibility of the instrument. tendril was composed in 2013 and can be performed either as a solo harp work or in duet with electronics https://soundcloud.com/zaricustra/richard-barrett-tendril-nyc-june-2015
cyme was written in 2016 and extensively performed both as a solo and as a duo with electronics. Both tendril and cyme are part of a large ensemble cycle of works close up, written for and performed by Ensemble Studio 6. The album with the 66 minute work will be released in 2025. pektis was written for solo harp with voice in 2023 and has been performed in the US and Holland so far.
They both teach at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, where they are currently based. Collaborative Music Creation is a class which gathers students from all the conservatoire’s departments. It involves exploration of strategies for collective composition and improvisation, which is also indicative of their own creative work as a duo. They combine detailed composition with free improvisation, electric and acoustic instruments with live electronics.
On their Bandcamp label Strange Strings – their album Mirage is one of the releases.
https://milanazaririchardbarrett.bandcamp.com/album/mirage