British cellist Eliza Millett has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in a number of UK and international venues and festivals such as Wigmore Hall, Musikverein, Philharmonie de Paris, Yellow Barn, Banff Centre, IMS Prussia Cove, Mendelssohn on Mull, Aix-en-Provence and Peasmarsh Festival. She is a Countess of Munster Trust debut scheme winner, Hattori Foundation Award recipient and an artist for the City Music and Urakawa Foundations. Eliza has appeared multiple times on BBC Radio 3, CBC Radio (Canada) and NPR (Virginia, US). She performed as a soloist with the Orchestra of St John’s for BBC Radio 3’s Private Passions (2016), is the winner of the Cello Sonata Prize at the Royal Academy of Music (2018), and gave her solo debut at the Lake District International Summer Festival (2019) collaborating with pianist Melvyn Tan. Eliza is a graduate of the University of Oxford (2017) and of the Royal Academy of Music (2019) where she studied with Christoph Richter.
As an active chamber musician, Eliza is the cellist of the award-winning Kleio String Quartet, Trio Cordiera (piano) and a founding member of Trio Kurtág (strings). She is a Britten-Pears Young Artist 2023 with both her string quartet and piano trio and is part of the Strijkkwartet Amsterdam Biënnale Residencies, 2023-4. Recently, the Kleio Quartet received First Prize and the commission Prize at the Carl Nielsen International Chamber Music Competition (Denmark). Eliza performs regularly with the Royal Northern Sinfonia, London Mozart Players, Sinfonia of London and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and has worked closely with composers György Kurtág, Thomas Adès and Sir Harrison Birtwistle. Upcoming highlights of the 2023-24 season include tours of Scotland and the Netherlands with Kleio Quartet, a collaboration with cellist Eckart Runge (ex-Artemis Quartet) and a two year-long residency in Paris as part of ProQuartet.
Alongside her performance engagements, Eliza is committed to artistic programming. She is the co-director of Smorgaschord, an arts festival based in Oxford with new music at its heart, whose mission is to explore unexpected connections between musical and literary cultures, both local and global. It is composed of a small and flexible group of artists who come together each year to explore, define and communicate a new artistic vision. Highlights of Smorgaschord 2023 festival include a ‘Ligeti Day’, featuring artists such as Danny Driver and a collaboration between Kleio Quartet and György Kurtág Jr.