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

Biography

Education

Miller was born in 1954 in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most pop ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

. In 1977, she received a

BMus Bachelor of Music (BM or BMus) is an academic degree awarded by a college, university, or conservatory upon completion of a program of study in music. In the United States, it is a professional degree, and the majority of work consists of prescr ...

and MMus from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institu ...

. During that time, she studied composition under Walter Buczynski, John Beckwith, Lothar Klein, John Weinzweig 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 avantgarde "Cracow Group" of Polish composers alongside Krzysztof Penderecki and others. Schaeffe ...

. Miller studied piano with Elaine Keillor from 1975-1978, and electronic/computer music with Gustav Ciamaga, Bill Buxton,

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 Acou ...

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. He studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Cambridg ...

Compositions

In 1979, Miller moved to Hamilton. There, she composes

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

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

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 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 Canadian clarinetists Canadian women pianists Musicians from Toronto University of Toronto alumni Canadian people of Estonian descent 21st-century Canadian pianists 21st-century Canadian women musicians 21st-century clarinetists Canadian women composers 21st-century women pianists