Elma Miller

Elma Miller, composer, music typographer, writer and teacher, received the B Mus and M Mus from the U. of Toronto.  She studied composition with Walter Buczynski, John Beckwith, Lothar Klein and John Weinzweig; electronic music and theory with Gustav Ciamaga and William Buxton. Studies in aesthetics with Geoffrey Payzant and media with Marshall McLuhan also have had a considerable influence on her thought processes.

She used her Sir William Erving Fairclough composition graduating scholarship to take part in the Stanford U. computer music workshop studying with John Chowning and Leland Smith, whose notation programme she was to adapt as her main computer music typographical tool. 

In 1980 she won the Els Kaljot-Vaarman Prize (Sweden) for chamber music along with Arvo Pärt.  In 1981 she won the Sir Ernest MacMillan Award for her orchestral composition for Genesis.  In 1997 her Butterfly Garden received Honourable Mention in the R. Murray Schafer International competition for Music and Play (Poznañ, Poland).  In 1999 Elma’s essay on Elaine Keillor was the winner of the inaugural Canadian Women’s Mentorship award in Arts and Culture (sponsored by Trimark).

Throughout the past 30 years Miller’s varied interests have converged into definite streams: she has been inspired by astronomy, archeology, Buddhist meditation, language, ecology and her ancestral heritage, all of which have been featured in her music and continue to be a fount of inspiration.

Characterized in her works is her sense of drama, intrigue, humour and irony. Her pallet is expressionistic and colourful using at times some freedom in notation to allow for more spontaneous interpretation.

Miller has been commissioned through the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, Stephen B. Roman Foundation, Laidlaw Foundation, Alliance for Canadian New Music Projects and others. Her works have been broadcast in Canada and performed worldwide.  She is a member of the Canadian Music Centre, Association of Canadian Women Composers, Canadian League of Composers, SOCAN and World Federation of Acoustic Ecology, and lives in Burlington, Ontario.

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