Gregory Miller & Ernest Barretta - From Bach to Bernstein: Romantic Music for Horn and Piano (2003)

I chose the works for this recording based primarily on a desire to showcase the horn that I have played since my graduation from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music. I purchased the horn in 1987 from it’s original owner — my teacher, Robert Fries. It is an Elkhart Conn 8D, serial number 398205. Although I have had the horn relaquered, the valves replated, and added a few patches to the bell where age has taken its toll, it exists today as it did the day it was purchased in 1951 from a small music store in Schenectady, New York. It still has the original lead pipe, mechanicall thumb valve, first branch, and wooden hard case. Even with the amount of touring that I do, I have fought the temptation to cut the bell for easier travel or to add water keys. Over the years, this horn has been heard on dozens of recordings, including several of the Paul Paray and Detroit Symphony Orchestra recordings on the Mercury label, where Bob Fries sat as Third and Principal Horn during the late 1950s. Prior to Detroit, the horn was in the New Orleans Philharmonic and the U.S. Marine Band, “President’s Own.” In 1963, Fries was appointed Co-principal Horn of the Philadelphia Orchestra where he joined Mason Jones, his former teacher from Curtis. In the years since I have owned the horn, it has appeared on numerous recordings with the New World Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas, specifically the Ingolf Dahl recordings featuring the Music for Brass Instruments. In addition to hundreds of concerts with Empire Brass, it appears most recently on the Telarc release, The Glory of Gabrieli. In June 2002, I felt it was time that the horn received its own solo CD. I chose a wide variety of music in order to feature the horn’s versatility. I believe that its tone, clarity, wide range of timbres, and breadth of sound in all registers is well worth sharing.

Equally at home as a soloist, teacher, chamber musician and symphonic horn player, Gregory Miller is fast becoming one of the most accomplished horn players of his generation. As hornist with the internationally acclaimed Empire Brass, Mr. Miller has performed in nearly every major concert hall in the world, including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Tokyo Opera City, the Mozarteum, Petronas Towers, the Barbican, and Suntory Hall. His recordings with Empire Brass, which include Class Brass: Firedance and The Glory of Gabrieli, can be heard exclusively on the Telarc Label. In 2006, Mr. Miller released his second solo album on the MSR label entitled Solos for the Horn Player [MS1147]. Mr. Miller joined the faculty at the University of Maryland School of Music in the Fall of 2000 and was appointed Chair of the Wind and Percussion Division in 2005. He also holds the position of Artist Faculty at the Lynn University Conservatory of Music in Boca Raton, Florida. His orchestral experience includes principal positions with the New World Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas and the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra. He has also performed with the Detroit, Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, National Baltimore Symphony Orchestras, and the Florida Philharmonic. Mr. Miller performs annually with the Sun Flower Music Festival and the Wolf Trap Opera Orchestra. He is a clinician for Conn-Selmer Musical Instruments and performs exclusively on the CONN 8D. A native of Youngstown, Ohio, Mr. Miller received his BM in Performance from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music where he studied with Robert Fries, former co-principal horn of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Mr. Miller makes his home in Silver Spring, Maryland and Boca Raton, Florida with his wife, violinist Laura Hilgeman, and their six children.