Jared Miller

American composer From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jared Miller (born October 31, 1988) is a Canadian-American composer of contemporary classical music, focusing on a wide range of influences from minimalism to the avant-garde.[1] Under Sea, Above Sky was nominated for a Juno Award during the Juno Awards of 2020.[2]

Education and awards

Jared Miller was born in Los Angeles, California in 1988, but grew up in the Vancouver, British Columbia. He enrolled at the University of British Columbia, where he studied composition with Stephen Chatman and Dorothy Chang and piano with Sara Davis Buechner and Corey Hamm.[3] He earned both his masters and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the Juilliard School, studying with composers Samuel Adler and John Corigliano.[4]

Miller has gone on to win the Juilliard Orchestral Competition (2011), Morton Gould Young Composers Award from ASCAP (2012), SOCAN Young Composers Award (3x), Jan V. Matejcek Award for Excellence in New Classical Composition, and Edward T. Cone Composition Institute Competition at Princeton University, where he worked with Steven Mackey.[5] He was recognized in the ISCM World Music Days, representing Canada in 2017, 2019, and 2024.

2010-present

Miller first gained notability in a commission from the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in celebration of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, of which he wrote 2010 Traffic Jam.[6] He subsequently served as the composer-in-residence with the Victoria Symphony from the age of 25.

In 2018, Miller began working on his first piano concerto, Shattered Night, which was written as a memorial for the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, which took place towards the beginning of the Holocaust. It was commissioned by pianist Sara Davis Buechner and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.[7] The concerto is not meant as a programatic depiction of the event, but rather an emotion reaction. The composition is noted for its extensive use of percussion and orchestral effects that convey broken glass, as well as the traditional Jewish prayer Sh’ma Yisrael.[8] Conductor Timothy Muffitt described the work as, "among the most heartfelt, poignant and moving works written in this century that I have encountered," after conducting a performance with pianist Han Chen and the Lansing Symphony.[9][10]

In 2019, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra premiered Under Sea, Above Sky under Ludovic Morlot. Under Sea, Above Sky was commissioned by the National Youth Orchestra of Canada for their 2019 tour of Canada and Spain. The work was inspired by climate change and as an ode to Earth, becoming a staple of the orchestral repertoire. It was nominated for the Juno Award for Classical Composition of the Year in 2020 with a recording by the National Youth Orchestra of Canada conducted by Michael Francis.[11][12] It was subsequently added to the repertoire of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.[13][14]

In 2019, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra premiered Luster under Robert Spano, which was commissioned by the Detroit Symphony and conductor Leonard Slatkin.[15]

Miller's work has been commissioned and performed in concerts by the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic Biennial, Detroit Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, Victoria Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Winnipeg Symphony, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Symphony Nova Scotia, Symphony in C, New Jersey Symphony, Elgin Symphony Orchestra, Nashville Symphony,[16] Windsor Symphony,[17] Hamilton Philharmonic, Edmonton Symphony Orchestra,[18] Kingston Symphony, Prince Edward Island Symphony, Alabama Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Contemporary Youth Orchestra, National Academy Orchestra of Canada, Lansing Symphony, Royal Conservatory of Music, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, and Vancouver Youth Symphony, among others.[19][20] His music has been conducted additionally by Alexander Prior, Robert Franz, Tania Miller, Jeffrey Milarsky, Jaelem Bhate, Giancarlo Guerrero, Adam Johnson, Peter Oundjian, Stilian Kirov, Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser, Xian Zhang,[21] Harold Rosenbaum, and George Manahan.

Teaching

Miller served on the Juilliard School faculty as a teaching fellow from 2012, and later from 2014 to 2017. He has acquired prior teaching positions at the Special Music School and Kaufman Music center. He also served on the composition and theory faculty at Dalhousie University.

He is currently the composer-in-residence at the Lansing Symphony Orchestra[22] and with composer Lawrence Dillion, is on the faculty at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.[23][24] He taught the pianist and XIX International Chopin Piano Competition silver-medalist Kevin Chen composition from 2014.[25]

Works

Orchestral Music

Chamber Music

  • Effevescent, for two pianos (2025)
    • commissioned by Piano Lunaire
  • Dream Echoes, for harp and sextet (2024)
    • commissioned by Latitude 49, Parker Ramsay, and Canada Council for the Arts
  • The Bright Exuberant Silence, for ten players (2023)
    • commissioned by Exponential Ensemble and Canada Council for the Arts
  • Phoenix, for string quartet (2021)
    • commissioned by Müzewest Concerts and SOCAN Foundation for the Echea Quartet
  • Go!, for string quartet (2021)
    • commissioned by the Sonora Collective
  • Absolute, for piano trio (2020)
    • commissioned by the Graham Sommer Competition for Young Composers
  • Leviathan, for sextet and electronics (2018)
    • commissioned by Standing Wave with support from the Canada Council for the Arts
  • Strangled by Growth, for string quartet
    • commissioned by the Emily Carr String Quartet with support from the BC Arts Council
  • Fuse, for mixed sextet and string quartet
    • commissioned by the Attacca Quartet and Latitude 49 with support from the Canada Council for the Arts
  • Guilty Pleasures, for mixed chamber ensemble
    • commissioned by Standing Wave Ensemble at Pyatt Hall
  • Lenny, for flute and piano (2015)
  • Bloom, for mixed flute ensemble, solo cello and optional percussion (2014)
  • Hap-π-ness, for woodwind trio (2014)
    • commissioned by Fifth House Ensemble with support from the Kenosha Community Foundation at the Kenosha Public Museum
  • Brushstrokes, for piano and ensemble (2014)
    • commissioned by the 2014 Fresh Inc. Festival
  • Captive (2013)
    • composed for Corey Hamm and Nicole Li as part of the Piano-Erhu-Project
  • The Duality of Nostalgia (2013)
  • Full Circle (2013)
  • Within the Walls, for String Quartet (2012)
  • Roi, for Woodwind Quartet and 6 Dancers (2011)
    • composed in collaboration with Ingrid Kapteyn and the Juilliard School Music and Dance Departments
  • Caprice, for Violin and Piano (2011)
    • commissioned by Francisco Garcia Fullana
  • Within the Walls, for string quartet (2010)
    • composed in collaboration with Nathan Makolandra and the Juilliard School's Dance and Music Departments

Solo Piano Music

Choral Music

  • In Flanders Fields (2016)
  • Shalom Rav (2011)

Electronic Music

  • In a state of flux (2013)

References

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