photo: Diane Fassino

Jonathan Miller was a pupil of Bernard Greenhouse. He is a 43-year veteran of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and has performed as a soloist with the Hartford Symphony; the Boston Pops, Cape Ann Symphony, and Newton Symphony; Symphony By The Sea, and the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra of Boston. Miller won the Jeunesses Musicales auditions, twice toured the United States with the New York String Sextet, and appeared as a member of the Fine Arts Quartet. He performed as a featured soloist at the American Cello Congress in both 1990 and 1996. Miller is the founder and Artistic Director of the Boston Artists Ensemble, now in its 42nd season of chamber music concerts in the Boston area. He is also a founding member of the Gramercy Trio. Miller has recorded the complete Beethoven cello sonatas with Randall Hodgkinson for the Centaur label, described as “exciting” by the New York Times. His Navona Records album THE NEW EPOCH includes works by Debussy, Ravel, Fauré, and Lili Boulanger. He performs on the “Paganini-Piatti” Matteo Goffriller cello, built in Venice in the year 1700.

Albums

Songs for a New Century

Release Date: May 3, 2024
Catalog Number: NV6623
21st Century
Romantic
Chamber
Solo Instrumental
Cello
Piano
Violin
The singing quality of string instruments ties together SONGS FOR A NEW CENTURY, a program featuring both world premiere recordings of new music commissioned for the artists and world premiere recordings of masterpieces by Mendelssohn. The program opens with a set of Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words, beginning with the Opus 109 written by the composer for cello and piano. It continues with a set of arrangements for cello and piano, some recorded for the first time, by the 19th century cellist Alfredo Piatti, a personal friend of Mendelssohn’s upon whose cello Jonathan Miller plays. Gabriela Lena Frank’s Operetta for violin and cello, the composer writes, expands upon Mendelssohn’s concept of the “song without words,” creating opera without words that evokes scenes and characters through singing music for the duo of violin (Lucia Lin) and cello. Scott Wheeler’s second cello sonata, Songs Without Words, was inspired by Miller’s singing cello tone. Finally, Judith Weir’s Three Chorales for cello and piano meditate on religious poetry, departing from hymn texts –– and in the third Chorale, a melody from Hildegard of Bingen –– in a triptych that evokes the human condition.

The New Epoch

Release Date: September 9, 2022
Catalog Number: NV6463
20th Century
Chamber
Cello
Piano
Violin
Artists are liminal figures — they cross thresholds and collapse boundaries between past, present, and future.  In THE NEW EPOCH, three musicians from the Boston Artists Ensemble interpret works by French composers Fauré, Debussy, Ravel, and Lili Boulanger, infusing these pieces with unprecedented freshness and clarity. Each celebrated in their own right, cellist Jonathan Miller, violinist Lucia Lin, and pianist Diane Walsh join forces in every duo setting possible from this assortment of instruments. Exploring works written at the threshold of the First World War — with the world crossing into the violent twentieth century and composers reacting with music that looked both nostalgically back and innovatively forward — they underline the commonalities between each composer’s unique voice and reinterpret this music for our turbulent present. Each celebrated in their own right, cellist Jonathan Miller, violinist Lucia Lin, and pianist Diane Walsh join forces in every duo setting possible from this assortment of instruments. Exploring works written at the threshold of the First World War –– with the world crossing into the violent twentieth century and composers reacting with music that looked both nostalgically back and innovatively forward –– they underline the commonalities between each composer’s unique voice and reinterpret this music for our turbulent present.