To….Oblivion: Historic Landmarks Around Los Angeles
A multi-media project conceived and performed by Mr. Miller using electric guitar, sound effects and visuals to describe six seminal landmarks in the Los Angeles area that have been either indelibly altered or destroyed.
The Program
Alexander Miller, Guitar & Electronics
I. Belmont Tunnel
II. Dunbar Hotel
III. Anaheim’s Center Street
IV. The Walk of a Thousand Lights
V. Zanja Madre
VI. At Sunset (and Horn Ave.)
The Artist
Alexander Elliott Miller is a composer and guitarist whose music has been described as “deceptively laid back in an LA way…inventive….unconventional” (Mark Swed, LA Times), and “wild…unearthly…lyrical…a voice worth listening to” (San Francisco Classical Voice).
His compositions have been performed at Carnegie Hall and London’s Mile End Art Pavilion; he has collaborated with Grammy nominated musicians including pianists Vicki Ray, Aron Kallay and soprano Tony Arnold, and had works performed by ensembles and organizations such as HOCKET, Juventas New Music Ensemble, Earplay New Chamber Music, the Boston New Music Initiative, the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, Panic Duo and Duo Montagnard among others. His compositions have been presented on the programs of many California based venues and series including San Francisco’s Center for New Music, Hot Air Festival and ODC Theatre, and Los Angeles’ Piano Spheres, Tuesdays at Monk Space, Hear Now Festival, Synchromy, People Inside Electronics, Carlsbad Music Festival, Microfest and the LA Conservancy. He has received honors including a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, Earplay Donald Aird Composers Award, a Definiens C3 Commission and the CAPMT Commissioned Composer Award.
His album TO….OBLIVION: Historic Landmarks Around Los Angeles was released in the fall of 2018, receiving local profiles in the LAist and Long Beach Press Telegram; the work is a collection of pieces inspired by six lost landmarks in LA, each of some social significance, performed by Miller on electric guitar, with sound effects and a slideshow video.
Miller is on the faculty of California State University Long Beach, where he teaches music theory, composition and musicianship at the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music. During the Spring of 2017 at CSULB, he served as the Interim Graduate Advisor. He also works at Chapman University, where he initiated and developed a new Composition and Songwriting course for non-music majors.
He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Composition from the University of Southern California, a Master of Music in Composition from the Eastman School of Music, and Bachelor of Music degrees in Composition & Guitar Performance from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
