Page updated on October 14, 2001. We've corrected more of the stale and non-working links and added some new ones.
Please Note!!
Elma's vita is here: vita vita
Website: http://www.hwcn.org/~aa210/Profile.html. Please change your links as the www.freenet.hamilton.on.ca link will no longer work. Thanks!!
Elma Miller is listed in the
ARA Computerised Engravers
Directory.
Click HERE for the most up-to date information on upcoming performances and ON-LINE MUSIC.
As with all WEB sites, the updating is continual. It'll probably NEVER be finished! Please bear with us for a bit longer.
Elma is a composer of "contemporary classical" music (remove xxzy from email) and is also a computer music engraver/copyist/typographer.
As a composer her work encompasses variety and complexity.
Reviewers have noted "the wit and humour of Jabberwocky, the intrigue and mystery of udok asem ets, and the reflectiveness and thoughtfulness of Voices in Stone."
The 7 July 1999 online edition of Village Voice called her music "wild!" She has written for orchestra, small ensembles, solo instruments, theatre and voice.
She is in great demand as a typographer and editor who reconstructs scores from manuscript. Her typography has covered all the major musical periods. Working with the programme called Score since 1988 she has been an engraver since 1975. Her early work was done entirely by hand and has been exhibited as artwork at, e.g., the Burlington (Ont.) Art Gallery. Editing and analysis of music under reconstruction has led her to hold seminars for publishers and music specialists at the forefront of discovery. She has written articles on typography and and what musicians should expect from current technology.
She may be contacted for engraving and consulting.
NEW MUSIC
Windwalker for solo clarinet [2001] Commissioned by Stephen
Pierre
Given Life [di 'ankh] for flute and piano [2001] Commissioned by
David Gerry via the Canada Council for the Arts
Sonata for Kannel, Clarinet and Voice [2001] Commissioned by the Estonian Council for the Arts in Canada through the Laidlaw Foundation
Where the darkest dust
b
unnies in the recesses of her cellar may be found. Once there you may never return. This is dusty stuff. Enter at your very own risk! Remember what the old maps said -- HERE BE MONSTERS!
Sign Elma's Guestbook!
View Elma's Guestbook!
Elma Miller is a composer of "contemporary classical" [i.e modern] music and a computer music engraver. She has the M.Mus. in composition from the University of Toronto, where she was a student of the famed John Weinzweig. Later studies were with Leland Smith at Stanford and Boguslaw Schaffer at York U, England. (For those of you who don't know Weinzweig, see the recent book by Elaine Keillor, distributed by University Press of America.)
She is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre, a member of the Canadian League of Composers, of the Association of Canadian Women Composers and of the Internatio nal Association of Women in Music. She belongs to the performing rights organization SOCAN, the Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers of Canada.
The Canadian Music Centre's library holdings of Elma's music can be found here.
Living in Burlington, Ontario, Canada, she is an avid racewalker and is often seen "doing this weird walk" along Burlington's beautiful lakefront paths.
I'm sure everyone wants to know what the weather is in these parts. So here's the Southern Ontario Weather Forecast (a text file) directly from Environment Canada. It's updated several times a day. If you want snazzier images, and you have graphics and frames etc. then the Hamilton conditions and forecast are available from The Weather Network.
She is a founding member of the World Forum on Acoustic Ecology, which has as its m ission the study of natural and human made soundscapes.
(Links!) Her
background is
Estonian and is she is
delighted that Estonia
is once again an independent state. She hopes to visit
Saaremaa,
where her
parents were born, soon!
In Burlington, she accesses the Internet through the Hamilton- Wentworth Community Net.
Latest information on performances and on-line music can be found
HERE .
Elma's latest work is Seven Sisters
Rising for small
orchestra (single winds, percussion and strings),
commissioned by the Windsor
Symphony. It was inspired by a view of the
Pleiades (also
known as the Seven Sisters) from her garden, and premiered
in Windsor on January
24, 1997 with Susan Haig conducting.
It will be performed again on Friday, March 13, 1998 by the Composers'
Orchestra, conducted by Gary Kulesha at the
Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto.
Another recent work is Butterfly
Garden, for "children
at play". It's for children who have no previous
musical experience who can
take part and have fun participating in a chamber work. It's
scored for
clarinet, horn, various "found" percussion
instruments, piano and
cello. This one was inspired by a recent visit to the
Niagara Parks
Butterfly
Conservatory, and seeing children's reactions to
butterflies landing on
their brightly coloured T-shirts! A pupil at Hillside
school in Minnesota has
drawn a nice picture of a
Morpho.
La
nuit s'ouvre
for solo clarinet will be performed on March 26, 1998 by
one of Canada's
premier clarinettists, Stephen Pierre, also at the
Glenn Gould
Studio; it is slated for broadcast on a future Sunday on the CBC
Radio Two programme Music Around Us.
Espace Musique of Ottawa, Ontario presented her udok asem ets in the auditorium of the National Gallery of Canada on January 16, 1997, dramatised by 3 female vocalists. The piece is an "earnest" discussion in nonsensical Estonian.
We quote from the review by Richard Todd in the Ottawa Citizen. A RealAudio online recording of udok is available on the Kalvos and Damien composers' page!
"udok asem ets, by Elma Miller, is scored for three voices speaking in complex, carefully controlled rhythms. Although it stretches the customary definitions of music a bit, it is entertaining and an impressive achievement. It was performed as a catty coffee [klatsch] ..."
On November
9, 1996, Symphony
Hamilton, conducted by James McKay, performed
Circumstantial Evidence,
originally for
wind quintet + string quintet but also suitable for larger
forces. It's already
been performed twice in the last couple of years by the
Windsor Symphony under
its conductor, Susan Haig.
Elma's recent work, Voices in Stone, for piano, based on a Cuneiform script by Daryavush (Darius) the Great, was performed several times last year by one of Canada's leading exponents of contemporary piano music, Prof. Elaine Keillor of the department of music at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. The score has now been typeset and is available at the Canadian Music Centre's lending library.
A reading of sections from her libretto to L ewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark will take place later this year in neighbouring Hamilton, Ontario.
The Math Lesson by Tenniel is one of the famous puzzle images from the Snark. How many objects can you find that begin with the letter "B"?
Jab berwocky, for voice and piano, is based on the remarkable poem from Through the Looking-Glass. It has a beat, drama, murder, love and a success story! The Hamilton Spectator's critic, Hugh Fraser, called it "wildly imaginative."
Can a Smart Cat Scare Nice Mice?, for soprano, violin, cello and piano. Words by Miller. Written for the 35th anniversary celebrations of the Canadian Music Centre in 1994. It's a short, pithy and intense "psychodrama."
udok asem ets, for 3 voices. A nonsensical but heated debate in Estonian. Over 300 Estonian words were generated from the letters in the name of the Estonian- Canadian composer Udo Kasemets and used selectively in the piece for their vocal-acoustical consonance and dissonance. An Ottawa reviewer called it "Estonian Rap."
Syneidesis XII, for piano four hands. This piece was written in memoriam Robert Langstadt, a Montreal/Hamilton artist whose large scale woodcuts, up to 4 feet by 3 feet in 6 panels, made an indelible impact. The work is a powerful elegy.
Voices in Stone, for solo piano, is based on a Cun eiform script attributed to King Darius the Great:
The piece continues her "archaeological" series of compositions which started with her chamber work Margarita Anguisque, "the snake and the pearl", after an interpretation of the section of The Epic of Gilgamesh where the hero searches for eternal life.
La
nuit s'ouvre,
for solo clarinet was commissioned by Stephen Pierre with
the assistance of the
Canada Council. The piece has just recently been completed
and will be
premiered by Stephen in the near future.
Circumstantial Evidence, for wind quintet+string quintet. A Canada Council commission. The five movements are An ill wind blows; First conundrum; Gaudy night; Second conundrum; And then there were none.
Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra. Commissioned by the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, whose conductor Boris Brott challenged Elma to write him a BACH piece. This was her reply! The "B-A- C-H" is on page 36 of the score, in the marimba solo cadenza!
...to light one candle..., for accordion< /A> and strings, had as its inspiration the political changes in Estonia just before independence in 1990; the allusions are to the final stanza of the Estonian epic poem Kalevipoeg, to an internationally reproduced photo of Marju Lauristin holding a candle, together with millions of other Balts during the Freedom Chain in August, 1989, and to the motto of the Christopher Society, it is better to light one candle than curse the darkness. It was premiered in May, 1989 at Hart House, Toronto by accordionist Tiina Kiik and the ensemble Lyra Borealis under the direction of Tõnu Kalam as part of the festivities surrounding the 75th anniversary of the Tallinn Conservatory of Music. A repeat performance took place the following year under Paavo Järvi.
The Witch of Agnesi, for B flat clarinet, bass clarinet, horn, 2 percussion, viola and double bass. Commissioned by the Alliance for Canadian New Music Projects. First performed in late October 1989 in Toronto by Gary Kulesha conducting the Composers' Orchestra. Despite its name, date of performance and Gary's comment on its "witchiness", the piece has nothing to do with Hallowe'en; rather, with a "mantle- clock" shaped mathematical curve, named after the 18th century Italian woman mathematician Donna Mar ia Gaetana Agnesi.
Schroedinger's Cat, for accordion solo, takes its title from the well-known quantum mechanical paradox. Is the cat alive or dead? Whatever, Cat has been kept alive by Tiina Kiik, who commissioned the piece with the assistance of the Ontario Arts Council.
A text version of Elma's bio can be found here. An HTML version will appear soon.
Elma has been a music copyist for a number of years. She started out as a hand copyist under the guidance of the Canadian Music Centre's then librarian, Henry Mutsaers. In 1988, she became "computerised" and, based on her experience when at Stanford in 1978, decided on Prof. Leland Smith's SCORE when it became available on PC's. (Those who are interested may subscribe to an unmoderated discussion group on SCORE; information is available at the SCORE on the Internet home page.)
Elma's particular expertise is in the "marriage" of music and text and in the copying of "difficult" contemporary scores. She designed and created the camera-ready copy (music, text and layout) for Elaine Keillor's recently-published biography of John Weinzweig, Canada's Radical Romantic, mentioned above. Weinzweig is one of the pioneers of Canadian music; now in his 80's, he is still composing and the book offers a look not only at his music but also insights into his role in the development of what are now important Canadian musical institutions, such as the Canada Council, the Canadian League of Composers and the Canadian Music Centre.
Marc-Andre Roberge, in a recent review of the book in the Spring 1996 issue of American Music, praised Elma's "expertly computer engraved" eighty musical examples.
"... and abandon hope, ye who enter ..." No, it's not that bad, but Elma's closet does contain all sorts of wonderful stuff: works for clarinet and horn; clarinet and double bass; 4 horns; 3 percussion; flute, cello and guitar; solo bassoon and electronics; and more.
Elma says: "It's all in here somewhere! Who knows, I may even have exactly what you're looking for! Just send me email on your favourite instrumental "combo" and I'll rummage through my closet. I might just have it! Thanks for asking!"
A Modern
Music Newsgroup with lively discussion is
rec.music.clas
sical.contemporary.
Here are some more intriguing links dealing with music, the arts, and "artsy" stuff in general:
There are LOTS of great links to Canadian culture at the CultureNet .
Try also the following:
Here are some non-musical sites:
The Royal
Ontario Museum is world famous for its Chinese
and Egyptian
collection, and of course for the
dinosaur
s!
Try out the ritzy Jaimie Kennedy restaurant on the top
floor (if you can find
it -- it's hidden away!).
The Art
Gallery of Ontario is well worth an extended
visit. Elma's fave
works are the humongous Hamburger and the Rodin sculptures,
all at eye level.
The Moores are "OK" -- his wobbly doughnut outside
is a landmark if
you miss the front door.
Just north of Niagara Falls, Ontario is the beautiful
Niagara Parks
Butterfly
Conservatory. It opened only recently, and contains over
2,000 species of
butterflies. The
Morpho
is truly fascinating -- its wings when opened are a
scintillating, iridescent
blue but when closed, it looks like a dead leaf!
This is
why!
Get totally lost
in the
WebMuseum. It
has literally thousands of paintings, drawings, photographs
and sculptures for
on-line viewing pleasure!
Here are three
sites devoted to the
beautiful Royal Botanical Gardens in
Hamilton/Burlington,
Ontario ... a favourite haunt of Elma's!
M
cMaster
University's RBG site
CHCH-TV's RBG site
Beachweb's
Toronto-area attractions site
And for even
more links,
there's always Elma's Twilight
Zone!
Some people:
Tim Cooper is a composer living in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Tim and I went to school together in Toronto and we "found" each other again thanks to the Internet!
Waldec lives in Saaremaa, Estonia.
And for a link to a random Web page, click on URouLette.
This page is "constantly variable"! It was last updated on February 20, 1997 by Aadu Pilt, to whom suggestions should be sent.
Elma Miller's E-mail address is elma.miller@hwcn.org
The URL of this site is http://www.hwcn.org/~aa210/Profile.html< /B>
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