Westminster Choir

January 9th, 2009 at 8 pm
Mees Hall

The Conservatory Choral department is hosting the Westminster Choir under direction of Joe Miller.  Ticket prices are $10 for adults and $7 for students/seniors. For more information or to purchase tickets call 614-236-6411.

Setting the standard for choral excellence for 80 years, the Westminster Choir is in its second season with conductor Joe Miller.  Maestro Miller has conducted choirs throughout the United States and Europe, earning critical praise and awards at such important festivals as the 2005 European Grand Prix for Choral Singing in Varna, Bulgaria.

The Choir's 2008-2009 season includes a concert tour of the Midwest, performances in Connecticut, New York and Princeton and at the 2009 Spoleto Festival U.S.A.  Recent seasons have also included tours of the United Kingdom, Korea and Taiwan, as well as a series of performances at the Colmar (France) International Music Festival.

Its recording with Conductor Laureate Joseph Flummerfelt, Heaven to Earth, is available internationally on the AVIE label.  Praised by Classical Music Web for its “expert choral artistry” and by Classics Today.com as “a thought-provoking and multi-faceted exploration,” the recording originated with the ensemble’s 2002 PRI radio broadcast reflecting on the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  It includes Agnus Dei, a choral setting of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings and Arnold Schoenberg’s demanding Friede auf Erden.

Praised by critics for its “full-bodied, incisive singing” (The New York Times), the Westminster Choir also forms the core of the Westminster Symphonic Choir, which has performed and recorded with the leading conductors and orchestras of our time.

Joe Miller is conductor of two of America’s most renowned choral ensembles – the Westminster Choir and the Westminster Symphonic Choir.  As director of choral activities at Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton, N.J., he oversees an extensive choral program that includes eight ensembles.

His 2008-2009 season includes a series of collaborations with the New York Philharmonic and conductors Gilbert Kaplan, Ton Koopman, Lorin Maazel and Kurt Masur.  He will collaborate with Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra for a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in March at Carnegie Hall.  In May 2009 he and the Westminster Symphonic Choir will return to Carnegie Hall to join Pierre Boulez and the Staatskapelle Berlin in performances of Mahler’s three choral symphonies.

Guest conductor for numerous all-state and honors choirs, this season he will conduct the Illinois All-State Choir in January and the California All-State Choir in March.  He will also be a presenter with Chorus America at the National Collegiate Choral Conductors (NCCO) Conference in Cincinnati and the headliner at the American Choral Directors Association’s Virginia Summer Conference.  

Dr. Miller will lead the Westminster Choir on a concert tour of the Midwest in January, and they will travel to the Spoleto Festival USA in the summer for their annual residency.  He will return to Princeton to conduct the two-week Westminster Chamber Choir program and the Westminster Choral Festival in July.

Keynote speaker at a recent Chorus America conference, he said “Choral music in the United States has seen unprecedented growth in the past several decades.  The influence of our past leaders is part of our fabric, but we must seize this time to create a new vision based on the foundation that has been laid before us.  We must keep the traditions but be willing to change in order to build a vision for the future.”

Joe Miller earned a master’s degree and a doctorate in choral conducting from the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati.  He holds a bachelor’s degree in music education and voice from the University of Tennessee.