Piano-David Miller
DAVID MILLER AM
[November 2007]
“The role model of Australian accompanists”
(Sydney Morning Herald)
“Continued the Parsons legacy with unfailingly perceptive piano partnership”
(North Shore Times)
“A recital of surpassing excellence on all counts”
(The Advertiser)
The pianist David Miller is widely recognized as one of Australia's leading chamber musicians and vocal accompanists. He has been appointed as a member of the Order of Australia for his service to music.
His distinguished career has included partnerships with many internationally renowned singers and instrumentalists including Marilyn Richardson, Lauris Elms, Elizabeth Campbell, Luigi Alva, Peter Coleman-Wright, John Mark Ainsley, Joan Carden, Boris Belkin, Christopher Kimber, Raphael Wallfisch, Meir Rimon, Igor Osim, Alain Marion, Geoffrey Collins, Diana Doherty and James Kortum
Mr Miller’s performing schedule has taken him to the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Indonesia, Japan, China, Saudi Arabia, New Caledonia, Korea, Vanuatu Thailand and Vietnam, as well as through most parts of Australia. He has toured and recorded regularly for the ABC and is currently on the Artistic Review Panel for Musica Viva Australia.
David Miller has been involved in a number of musicological research projects. He accompanies baritone Dr Michael Halliwell on the highly acclaimed When The Empire Calls and soprano Wendy Dixon and baritone John Pringle in Echo and anthology of songs by Horace Keats. ABC Classics produced both CDs. He also has had a continuing commitment to the promotion and performance of Australian music. He has collaborated in the publication of Songs From Australia and Voice Of Australia, Australian song anthologies, which provide performance notes for singers and accompanists. All the songs included have been recorded on CD with soprano Wendy Dixon and issued on the Publications by Wirripang label. He has also recorded Australian instrumental music, including the complete violin repertoire of Raymond Hanson with Susan Collins and three iconic volumes of Flute Australia with Geoffrey Collins. Mr Miller’s most recent CD release is the critically acclaimed Back From Oblivion, an historic collection of music for the ophicleide and piano recorded with Nick Byrne for Melba Recordings
Mr Miller has been on the staff of Sydney Conservatorium of Music since 1980 and in 1995 was appointed the first chair of the Ensemble Studies Unit, with responsibility for Chamber Music/Accompaniment tuition and administration throughout the institution. He has introduced an innovative and comprehensive programme of study for students at both graduate and under-graduate levels and actively promotes a wide variety of performance opportunities for student ensembles in concerts, broadcasts and tours.
David Miller has conducted master classes and lectures for universities, conservatoriums, music organizations and music conferences in many parts of Australia and Asia. Last year he was the artist-in-residence at a highly successful Festival of Accompanists in Adelaide and will return there in this year. He has also been a panel member for the Melbourne Song Recital Awards and a guest artist on the staff of the Australian National Academy of Music. This year, he was pianist for the finals of the prestigious McDonald’s Operatic Aria at the Sydney Opera House and will fill this role again this year.
David Miller’s studio has produced many of Australia_s finest young piano accompanists and he has been instrumental in setting up the Geoffrey Parsons Australian Scholarship and other awards to assist all young accompanists and repetiteurs in the development of their careers.
He is currently the president of the Accompanists' Guild of NSW and very active in the promotion of piano accompaniment as an independent art form worthy of professional recognition and academic research.