About
Michael Miller is a composer, bass clarinetist, and educator based in the Kansas City area. As an avid performer, he strongly believes in the aesthetics of the composer-performer and his compositions are informed from a performer's perspective. Michael's body of works are influenced by an eclectic collection of styles and genres including, but not limited to, jazz, rock, Persian dastgāh, death metal, and hip hop. Michael has received commissions from Keith Kirchoff and the Midwest Chamber Ensemble, the California E.A.R. Unit, Music from China, and violist Katrin Meidell, among others. His works have been performed by Mnemosyne Quartet, Hillary Sametz, Richard Prior and the Oklahoma State University Symphony Orchestra, and Embryonic Noise! Michael has received grants from multiple Kansas City organizations such as the Charlotte Street Foundation, Art in the Loop, and ArtSounds—a collaboration between the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance and the Kansas City Art Institute. |
Recent News
Bill Shaltis, percussion faculty at University of Memphis, has just commissioned a virtuosic death metal solo for attenuated timpani drum set. Beginning on July 25th, Michael will be in residence at Avaloch Farm with Patchtax, Boston based saxophone and viola duo. |
Recent Performances
Michael played at Electronic Music Midwest (EMM) on November 21st, playing Ted King-Smith's Soundtrack of an Open Road. In the past year, he has performed with Mnemosyne a total of 10 times at various venues ranging from the Kemper Art museum, to Prospero's Books and even Prarie Logic-- a downtown rooftop garden. |
Recent Compositions
Nicodemus: The Beds are Burning Again. Listen. Inspired by the movie, The Secret of Nimh, this piece was written for pianist Keith Kirchoff and the Midwest Chamber Ensemble. Copper Birds. Press. The string Trio Copper Birds was written for Charlotte Street's The Beautiful Noises. Analog Drift. Blog. Video. Analog Drift is an immersive performance installation that tells the story of an artificial intelligence and its journey to learn the audio-visual language of its creators. The AI decodes audio-visual data in order to synthesize its own creative voice. As the AI learns, it starts a dialog with the performers and eventually collaborates along side its creators. Anomalous City Listen. Press. This project played on the observers’ perceptions and their ability to cope with unforeseen environments within their own set of expectations. Anomalous City transported the sounds of the natural environment into the urban landscape of Prairie Logic, as well as exaggerated sounds already present in the park. The introduced environments ranged from remote landscapes–such as the African jungle or Australian Outback –to an augmented reality of the urban landscape, and then to a future where an artificially intelligent being becomes active, adding to the sound of the digitally driven modulated environment, which engaged the observers’ imaginations with it’s foreign and unique sound. Microchromatic Blog. Video. MicroChromatic is an interactive performance installation exploring the relationship between various modes of sensory perception. Participants experienced fifteen minutes of total sonic and visual immersion inside the optochamber – a compartment specifically designed to merge the separate senses by attempting to nullify the boundaries between them. Cows Listen. Cows was written for the California EAR unit while in residence at Arcosanti. |
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