CHROMA
Biography CHROMA
Alex Mills
Drawing on psychology, nature, ancient history, and metaphysical and spiritual ideas, my work uncovers how these layers shape identity and human connection.
I write opera, orchestral and chamber music, and also collaborate with artists and performers across disciplines, often extending music beyond the concert hall into galleries, installations and site-specific environments.
Recent projects include an audiovisual collaboration with digital artist Reuko, presented at immersive art gallery FRAMELESS in London. I have also worked extensively with Singaporean artist Dawn Ng, including a live performance at Frieze New York in 2024 and music for her solo show during Singapore Art Week 2026. Other collaborations include integrating sound into a kinetic sculpture by Harrison Pearce.
My work has been presented internationally across concert halls and galleries, including the Barbican, The National Gallery, the V&A, Wigmore Hall, Café OTO, Cheltenham Music Festival, Kilkenny Arts Festival, Sónar Festival, Melbourne Recital Centre and Tokyo Opera City, and broadcast extensively on BBC Radio 3 and 4. It has also been featured widely in publications such as The Guardian, The Economist, BBC World, The Independent and Opera Magazine, and has been supported by Arts Council England and the PRS Foundation.
Proud of my Welsh roots, I composed the first known setting of Christ’s Seven Last Words - Saith Air y Groes - and was honoured to be commissioned by the National Eisteddfod of Wales to create new works for its 2026 festival.
CHROMA
performs chamber concerts throughout the UK, from Cornwall to Shetland. Championing the imaginative and sympathetic programming of contemporary works, our own commissioning programme has included Freya Waley-Cohen Wake, Rubens Askenar Praise of Smoke and Dust, David Bruce Kundalee and Suadades, Deborah Pritchard Rosa Celeste, Luke Bedford Falling Falling, David Gorton Burgh Castle, Michael Nyman chromattic, Leonardo Margutti Cochlear Short, Claudia Molitor 8+7= and DoodleOpera, Raymond Yiu Les Etoiles au Front (shortlisted British Composer Awards) and Michael Zev Gordon Glass Mountain.
Other premieres include Anna Meredith Railgun (Norfolk and Norwich Music Club) Rolf Hind Sit Stand Walk (Spitalfields Festival), Joe Cutler Chanticleer and the Opera Fox with Roderick Williams (Little Missenden Festival - shortlisted British Composer Awards).
CHROMA has been Associate Ensemble with Tête à Tête since 2006 - which includes developing new work through Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival, including Kerry Andrew/Tamsin Collison Dart's Love (winner Best Stage Work British Composer Awards), Laurence Obsorn/Theo Merz April in the Amazon and Lucie Treacher/Joanne Harris Moonlight in double bill with Na'ama Zisser/Stella Duffy The Last Seed.
Royal Ballet and Opera: hyper-reality opera installation Current, Rising score by Samantha Fernando; and premieres of operas - Philip Venables' adaptation of Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis (Best Large Scale Composition Royal Philharmonic Society; Best Stage Work British Composer Awards; Best Opera UK Theatre Awards) Elspeth Brooke The Commission, Francisco Coll Café Kafka (Aldeburgh/ROH/Opera North co-production) Luke Bedford Through His Teeth Søren Nils Eichberg Glare Tarik O'Regan Heart of Darkness (ROH2/Opera East) Stewart Copeland Tell Tale Heart and Anne Dudley The Doctor’s Tale (ROH2 operashots).
Ballet - Will Tuckett's Wind in The Willows (ROH2 Linbury/in the West End at the Duchess Theatre and Vaudeville Theatre - winner Best Entertainment Olivier Awards).
Mahogany Opera Group: premiere tour of David Bruce's Firework Maker's Daughter (Hull Truck pemiere, then ROH Linbury and UK tour - nominated Olivier Awards 2014); iGloria - A Pig's Tale by HK Gruber (UK tour including ROH Linbury, and Bregenz Festival); The Mother by Laurence Osborn (Posk London).
Other collaborations include: Jessica Walker and Luke Styles People’s Cabaret, Phil Cashian’s Northend concerts, Polly Graham’s Loud Crowd at Bold Tendencies Peckham, Bampton Opera at Sinfonia Smith Square and Longborough Festival Opera.
Recordings include Alex Mills, Richard Baker Motet II (NMC), Max Hoehn’s The Last Castrato (Opera21), and pieces written for CHROMA by RHUL post-grad composers Gonçalo Gato, Aitor Sorozabal, James Helgeson and Kyriakos Costa.
Jess Dandy
Cumbrian born Jess Dandy is widely regarded as the foremost British contralto of her generation. She holds the 2025 Critics Circle Award for Female Voice.
A graduate with special excellence in Modern and Medieval Languages from Trinity College, Cambridge, she went on to train with distinction and hold a fellowship at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.
In the 2025/26 season, Jess makes house debuts at the Salzburg Easter Festival and the Berliner Philharmonie as Floßhilde in Das Rheingold (Kirill Petrenko), at the Bayerische Staatsoper as Lady Toodle in Die Englische Katze (Katharina Wincor), and later in the summer as Cornelia in Giulio Cesare at The Grange Festival (Christian Curnyn).
On the concert platform, she appears in performances of The Dream of Gerontius with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Kazuki Yamada and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic/Andrew Manze, Elgar Sea Pictures with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Antony Hermus and Handel Messiah with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/Eamonn Dougan, the Irish Baroque Orchestra/Peter Whelan, and the Tampere Philharmonic/Matthew Halls.
Recent highlights include her return to the BBC Proms for Stravinsky Requiem Canticles, Thomas Adès Totentanz with the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester/Thomas Adès, Berlioz Roméo et Juliette with the Bergen Philharmonic/Sir Mark Elder, Mahler Symphony No. 3 with the BBC Philharmonic/John Storgårds, Beethoven Symphony No. 9 with the Boston Symphony/Ludovic Morlot, Bach Weihnachtsoratorium with the Tampere Philharmonic/Matthew Halls, and Mahler Rückert-Lieder with the BBC Symphony Orchestra/Kristian Sallinen.
In recital, she returns to the Oxford International Song Festival and Kings Place with Keval Shah for their concert-meditation Eternity in an Hour, to Wigmore Hall with Dylan Perez, and records Schubert Winterreise with Martin Roscoe, for release in 2028 (CRD).
Jess opened the BBC Proms in 2021 (Dalia Stasevska), and was shortlisted for a Royal Philharmonic Society Award. She is a multi-faceted artist with a keen interest in ecology, body psychology and the sacred. She is the co-founder of SongPath, a mental health initiative creating musical walking trails in nature for better mental health. As artist in residence at Brantwood, Cumbria, she is creating a listening room for ecological consciousness through recorded sound, spoken word & photography (Clare Park), opening this summer.
