Elma Miller (born August 6, 1954) is a Canadian musician, composer, writer and educator.

Biography

Education

Miller was born in 1954 in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

. In 1977, she received a

BMus A Bachelor of Music (BMus; sometimes conferred as Bachelor of Musical Arts) is an academic degree awarded by a college, university, or conservatory upon completion of a program of study in music. The degree may be awarded for performance, music ed ...

and MMus from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

. During that time, she studied composition under Walter Buczynski, John Beckwith, Lothar Klein,

John Weinzweig John Jacob Weinzweig (March 11, 1913 – August 24, 2006) was a composer, teacher, and advocate of contemporary Canadian concert music. Born in Toronto, Weinzweig went to Harbord Collegiate Institute, then studied music at the University of Tor ...

and

Bogusław Schaeffer Bogusław Julian Schaeffer (also Schäffer) (6 June 1929 – 1 July 2019) was a Polish composer, musicologist, and graphic artist, a member of the avant-garde "Cracow Group" of Polish composers alongside Krzysztof Penderecki and others. Schaeff ...

. Miller studied piano with

Elaine Keillor Frances Elaine Keillor C.M. (born 2 September 1939) is a Canadian musicologist and pianist. She has been a professor of music at Carleton University since 1977, specializing in the music of Canadian composers and the music of North American indig ...

from 1975 to 1978, and electronic/computer music with

Gustav Ciamaga Gustav Ciamaga (April 10, 1930 – June 11, 2011) was a Canadian composer, music educator, and writer. An associate of the Canadian Music Centre and a member of the Canadian League of Composers, he was best known for his compositions of electron ...

Bill Buxton William Arthur Stewart Buxton (born March 10, 1949) is a Canadian computer scientist and designer. He is regarded as one of the pioneers in the field of human–computer interaction and is currently active in research at the University of Toront ...

John Chowning John M. Chowning (; born August 22, 1934, in Salem, New Jersey) is an American composer, musician, discoverer, and professor best known for his work at Stanford University, the founding of CCRMA – Center for Computer Research in Music and ...

and Leland Smith. She also studied aesthetics with Geoffrey Payzant and media with

Marshall McLuhan Herbert Marshall McLuhan (, ; July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media studies, media theory. Raised in Winnipeg, McLuhan studied at the University of Manitoba a ...

Compositions

In 1979, Miller moved to

Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: * Alexander Hamilton (1755/1757–1804), first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States * ''Hamilton'' (musical), a 2015 Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda ** ''Hamilton'' (al ...

. There, she composes

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of Musical instrument, instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a Great chamber, palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music ...

, music for full orchestra, electronic music and vocal music. From 1976 to 1978, she taught clarinet, theory, counterpoint, orchestration, and 20th century analysis at Toronto University, as well as working as a lecturer and library technician at the university. She was artistic director for the contemporary chamber music series "Music Here & Now". Miller is of

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

n descent, and she has incorporated musical and thematic elements from that heritage into her work. Miller has also found inspiration from astronomy, archaeology, Buddhist meditation and ecology. She has composed works for various musical groups including the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra and the pianist Elaine Keillor. Her works have been performed in Canada and internationally. Below is a non-comprehensive list of Miller's compositions.

Awards

In 1980, Miller won the Swedish Els Kaljot-Vaarman prize for chamber music. In 1981, she won the Sir Ernest MacMillan Award (bronze) by the

Composers, Authors and Publishers Association of Canada The Composers, Authors and Publishers Association of Canada () was a Canadian copyright collective for the right to communicate with the public and publicly perform musical works. CAPAC administered these rights on behalf of its members (composers, ...

for her orchestral composition ''Genesis''. In 1997, she received honourable mention in the R. Murray Schafer International competition for Music and Play for her composition ''Butterfly Garden''. She also won an Estonian cultural committee in Canada award, as well as an Estonian orchestral award in 1975.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Miller, Elma 1954 births Living people Canadian composers Musicians from Toronto University of Toronto alumni Canadian people of Estonian descent 21st-century Canadian pianists 21st-century Canadian clarinetists Canadian women composers 21st-century Canadian women pianists