Columbus Symphony Announces Elias Miller as New Assistant Conductor

The Columbus Symphony has named Elias Miller as its new Assistant Conductor. Miller has established a reputation as a leading young conductor, having worked with numerous orchestras across the United States, including the New York Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Nashville Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Albany Symphony. He holds degrees from Harvard University and the University of Michigan and completed his postgraduate studies at the University for Music and Performing Arts, Vienna.

 

Miller will assist with the orchestra’s concert preparation and be vital to the success of educational programs. In addition to other conducting assignments, Miller will also be responsible for envisioning, rehearsing, and leading Young People’s Concerts, In-School Concerts, Family Concerts, and the Columbus Symphony Youth Orchestra.

 

Miller’s debut with the CSO will be at the first Young People’s Concert of the 2024-2025 season on Wednesday, October 2, 2024.

 

“Elias is an incredibly talented conductor, and so much more. His addition to the Columbus Symphony team will add depth to our artistic planning and production department, being a key voice on education, outreach, and concert programming. We are thrilled to have Elias join our Columbus community,” said Daniel Walshaw, Columbus Symphony Chief Operating Officer.

 

Music Director of the Apollo Ensemble of Boston since 2018 and Principal Conductor of the Upbeat New Hampshire Youth Orchestra since 2022, Elias Miller has established a reputation as a leading young conductor and orchestra builder. He has worked with numerous orchestras across the United States including the New York Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Nashville Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Albany Symphony, assisting notable conductors such as Giancarlo Guerrero, Juanjo Mena, JoAnn Falletta, Scott Yoo, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Eun Sun Kim, Paul McCreesh, Christoph König, Gemma New, Ruth Reinhardt, Erina Yashima, and David Alan Miller. Miller made his Carnegie Hall debut in the fall of 2023 guest conducting the New York International Symphony Orchestra. His other 2023-24 and Summer 2024 engagements included work as a cover conductor with the Nashville Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra, seven masterworks orchestra programs with the Apollo Ensemble, and concerts at the Colorado College Summer Music Festival, where Miller served as Assistant Conductor. 

 

An active conductor of opera and oratorio, Miller conducted Festival Theater Hudson's inaugural performance: a staged production of Wagner’s Die Walküre (Act I) in 2021 and co-conducted a production of Philip Glass’ La Belle et la Bête, at the University of Houston’s Moores Opera Center in 2022. Between 2016 and 2019, Miller led the Harvard Early Music Society in several premieres of operatic works. These productions included the Boston premiere of J.A. Hasse’s Alcide al Bivio in collaboration with the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra, the North American premiere of Telemann’s 1745 Johannespassion, a production that featured famed countertenor Charles Humphries and earned Miller an enthusiastic preview in the Boston Globe, and the North American premiere of J.A. Hasse’s Sanctus Petrus et Sancta Maria Magdalena. Miller has also conducted performances of operas by Gluck (Orfeo ed Euridice, Independent Opera Production), Stravinsky (The Rake's Progress, Harvard College Opera), William Grant Still (Minette Fontaine, Act II, Graduate Students at the University of Michigan), and Gilbert & Sullivan (Ruddigore, Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert & Sullivan Players). Other ensembles he has conducted in the past include the Pro Arte Orchester in Vienna, Austria, the Hudson Festival Orchestra, the University of Michigan's Symphony, Philharmonia, and Campus orchestras, the Ann Arbor Camerata, the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra Chamber Players, The Weston Wind Quintet & Friends, the Medomak Festival Orchestra, and the Chromos Collaborative Orchestra. Miller has also served as the assistant conductor for Opera Saratoga, the Boston Chamber Symphony, and the Orchestra Book Club.

 

A distinguished pianist and cellist, Miller has performed solo recitals in the United States and in Europe on both instruments and has served as a vocal coach and rehearsal pianist for many operatic productions. He holds degrees from Harvard University (A.B. in Music, summa cum laude) and the University of Michigan (M.M. in Orchestral Conducting) and completed his postgraduate studies at the University for Music and Performing Arts, Vienna. Miller’s teachers and mentors include Mark Stringer, Scott Yoo, Kenneth Kiesler, Federico Cortese, and his father, David Alan Miller.

 

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