Jared Miller

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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] His National Youth Orchestra of Canada-commissioned piece, Under Sea, Above Sky was nominated for the Juno Award for Classical Composition of the Year in 2020. [2]

Contents

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 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 (2020), and Edward T. Cone Composition Institute Competition (2021) at Princeton University, where he worked with Steven Mackey. [5]

Career

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

Career highlights include when conductor Alexander Prior conducted Palimpsest with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra in 2018. [7] In 2019, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra premiered Luster under Ludovic Morlot, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra premiered Under Sea, Above Sky under Robert Spano. [8] The piece, which was inspired by climate change as an ode to Earth, became a staple, and both Spano and Leonard Slatkin have conducted performances.

his piece Under Sea, Above Sky was nominated for the JUNO Award for Classical Composition of the Year [9] [10] [11] [12] in 2020 with a recording by the National Youth Orchestra of Canada conducted by Michael Francis. [13] It was subsequently added to the repertoire of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tania Miller. [14] [15]

In 2018, Miller began working on his 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. The concerto is not meant as a programatic depiction of the event, but rather as emotion reaction. The composition is noted for it's extensive use of percussion and orchestral effects that convey broken glass, as well as the traditional Jewish prayer Sh’ma Yisrael. [16] It was commissioned by pianist Sara Davis Buechner and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. [17] A 2025 performance with the Lansing Symphony under conductor Timothy Muffitt with pianist Han Chen also gained recognition. [18] [19]

Miller's work has been performed in concerts by the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic Biennial, Detroit Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, Juilliard Orchestra, Victoria Symphony, Montreal 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, [20] Windsor Symphony, [21] Hamilton Philharmonic, Kingston Symphony, Prince Edward Island Symphony, Alabama Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Contemporary Youth Orchestra, National Academy Orchestra, Lansing Symphony, Royal Conservatory of Music, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, Vancouver Youth Symphony, and many more. [22] [23] [24]

His music has been conducted additionally by Robert Franz, Jeffrey Milarsky, Giancarlo Guerrero, Adam Johnson, Peter Oundjian, Stilian Kirov, Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser, Xian Zhang, [25] Harold Rosenbaum, and George Manahan.

Teaching

Miller served on the theory faculty as a teaching fellow at the Juilliard School from 2012, and from 2014-2017. 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 [26] and with Lawrence Dillion, is on the faculty at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. [27] [28] He taught the XIX International Chopin Piano Competition silver-medalist Kevin Chen composition from 2014. [29]

Works

Orchestral Music

Chamber Music

Solo Piano Music

Choral Music

Electronic Music

References

  1. Shulze, Talia (2023-09-14). "Lansing Symphony Starts 2023-24 by Featuring New Composer in Residence". Symphony. Retrieved 2025-10-04.
  2. "Winners + Nominees". The JUNO Awards. Retrieved 2025-10-04.
  3. "Jared Miller | Composer". ClassicalQueer. Retrieved 2026-01-01.
  4. New York Philharmonic Shelby White & Leon Levy Digital Archives (2014-06-07). "New York Philharmonic Program (ID: 13105), 2014 Jun 07". archives.nyphil.org. Archived from the original on 2025-03-27. Retrieved 2025-11-22.
  5. McCabe, Victoria (July 2021). "New Jersey Symphony Orchestra announces NJSO Edward T. Cone Composition Institute composers: Elise Arancio: Wake Kevin Day: Tango Oscuro Erin Graham: Increase Jared Miller: Under Sea, Above Sky" (PDF). New Jersey Symphony Orchestra News. pp. 3–4.
  6. "Jared Miller". Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Retrieved 2025-10-04.
  7. "Edmonton Symphony Orchestra – Late Night Soundscapes - GlobalNews Events". Global News. Retrieved 2025-11-22.
  8. "Jared Miller | Ensemble Paramirabo". ensembleparamirabo.com. 2020-06-07. Retrieved 2025-10-04.
  9. "Winners + Nominees". The JUNO Awards. Retrieved 2025-10-04.
  10. "The 2020 Juno Nominations Are Here". ELLE Canada Magazine | Beauty, Fashion and Lifestyle Trends & Celebrity News. Retrieved 2025-10-04.
  11. "Juno Awards 2020 Winners and Nominations".
  12. "CMC Associate Composer Ana Sokolović wins the 2020 JUNO Award for Classical Composition of the Year" (Interview).
  13. "CMC Associate Composer Ana Sokolović wins the 2020 JUNO Award for Classical Composition of the Year" (Interview).
  14. "2024-05-11-CSO-Kids-Program Book | Chicago Symphony Orchestra". Experience the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Retrieved 2025-11-22.
  15. Sundwall, Hannah (April 22, 2024). "MAY PROGRAMMING AT SYMPHONY CENTER AND IN THE COMMUNITY" (PDF). Chicago Symphony Orchestra Programming: 4–5.
  16. "Comings and Goings". MY SITE. Retrieved 2026-01-19.
  17. "MusicalAmerica - Sara Buechner performs Jared Millers Piano Concerto with the Niagara Symphony". www.musicalamerica.com. Retrieved 2026-01-19.
  18. Cosentino, Lawrence (2026-01-13). "Chill winds and garlic bread". City Pulse. Retrieved 2026-01-19.
  19. Cosentino, Lawrence (2026-01-07). "Wreckers and builders". City Pulse. Retrieved 2026-01-19.
  20. Wheelahan, Colleen (2019-09-25). "Nashville Symphony Composer Lab Showcases Five Unique Voices Of New Music". Nashville Classical Radio. Retrieved 2025-10-04.
  21. www.elev8webstudio.com, Elev8 Web Studio-. "WSO brings in Pipa Player and Canadian composer Jared Miller". Windsor Symphony Orchestra. Retrieved 2025-10-04.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  22. Glickman, Ken. "Lansing Symphony kicks off season on Thursday with new composer-in-residence". Lansing State Journal. Retrieved 2025-10-04.
  23. Glickman, Ken. "Lansing Symphony kicks off season on Thursday with new composer-in-residence". Lansing State Journal. Retrieved 2025-10-04.
  24. www.elev8webstudio.com, Elev8 Web Studio-. "WSO brings in Pipa Player and Canadian composer Jared Miller". Windsor Symphony Orchestra. Retrieved 2025-10-04.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  25. Rabinowitz, Chloe. "New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Announces 2021–22 Season". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved 2025-11-23.
  26. Shulze, Talia (2023-09-14). "Lansing Symphony Starts 2023-24 by Featuring New Composer in Residence". Symphony. Retrieved 2025-10-04.
  27. "Composer-in-Residence | Lansing Symphony Orchestra". www.lansingsymphony.org. Retrieved 2025-09-11.
  28. Pohl, Scott (2023-08-03). "Lansing Symphony Orchestra names new Composer-in-Residence ahead of upcoming season". WKAR Public Media. Retrieved 2025-10-04.
  29. reports, Staff (2014-10-05). "Abbotsford Youth Orchestra presents 'Prodigy Doubled'". Abbotsford News. Retrieved 2025-10-21.
  30. "Winners + Nominees". The JUNO Awards. Retrieved 2025-10-04.