Richard Miller (singer)

Richard Miller (April 9, 1926 – May 5, 2009)[1][2] was a professor of singing at Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and the
author of numerous books on singing technique and vocal pedagogy. He also sang recitals, oratorios, and numerous roles as a
lyric tenor with major opera companies in Europe and America.

Contents
Early life and career
Vocal pedagogy pioneer
Notable students
Overview of work as teacher and voice scientist
Awards
Writings
References
External links

Early life and career

Richard Miller was born April 9, 1926, in Canton, Ohio, as the youngest of 5 children.[3] He began singing publicly at age three
and a half. Before his voice changed, at age 11, he sang hundreds of times in the Canton, Ohio, area.[2] Advised not to sing during
the voice-change period, he studied piano, cello, and organ,[4] but then returned to singing, in musicals at Lincoln High School in
Canton. He was drafted upon graduation from high school in 1944, assigned to the 7th Armored Division tank corps and sent to
the European theater in January 1945, attached to the British First Army. Stationed near Marseilles after the end of hostilities, he
took voice lessons with baritone Edouard Tyrand at the Marseilles Conservatory.[3]

Returning to the U.S. after the war, he pursued undergraduate studies at Westminster Choir College in Princeton NJ[5] before
transferring to University of Michigan. While in Princeton he met his future wife, linguist and choral singer Mary Dagger.[2]
They married in 1950, in Washington, DC.[3]

He earned his M.Mus. degree in Musicology from the University of Michigan and was then awarded a Fulbright Grant to study
voice in Rome, Italy, at l’Accademia di Santa Cecilia.[6] Accompanied by his wife, Mary Norman Dagger Miller, in 1951 he
traveled to Italy, where the couple lived for two years. In Rome, he studied with Luigi Ricci. He then went on to sing for four
years as leading lyric tenor at the opera house in Zürich, Switzerland. Two of the Miller's five children where born in those
years.[3]

He returned to the U.S. in 1957, and taught singing at the University of Michigan for five years, then at Baldwin-Wallace
University and from 1964 at Oberlin Conservatory of Music for over 40 years, till his retirement in 2006.[3] During those years,
until age 60, he sang hundreds of performances of oratorio and opera, including appearances with the San Francisco and San
Antonio Operas. He sang often with the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell, Pierre Boulez, and Louis Lane, including the
summer promenade concerts and all five of the Cleveland Orchestra’s Lake Erie Opera seasons at Severance Hall.

Vocal pedagogy pioneer

Although he was not formally trained as a scientist, he was always intensely curious about scientific aspects of singing. He
became convinced, early in his teaching career, of the value of information about the physiology and acoustics of singing; in 1961
he developed a vocal pedagogy forum, through a journal published by the Music Teachers National Association, for discussion
among voice teachers, to encourage openness to scientific approaches to the teaching of singing.[7]

He became internationally known for his abilities as a teacher of singing; for many years he gave teaching sessions all over North
America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. He authored eight books and hundreds of articles on the subject of singing.

Miller's collaboration with the Cleveland Clinic during the 1980's led to the development of the Oberlin Conservatory's Otto B.
Schoepfle Vocal Arts Center (OBSVAC),[8] an acoustic laboratory that measures vocal production and provides visual and
auditory feedback to the singer. The vocal arts center at Oberlin was the first of its kind to be based within a music school.[3]

Notable students
Notable students of Richard Miller include:

tenor, Franco Farina (https://www.onepointfm.com/en/francofarina)

tenor, Salvatore Champagne (https://www.oberlin.edu/salvatore-champagne)[9]
tenor, Leif Aruhn-Solen (http://aruhn-solen.com/)
soprano, Jennifer Casey Cabot (https://www.jennifercaseycabot.com/)
soprano, Megan Marie Hart[10]
soprano, Judy Kuhn
soprano, Kendra Colton (https://www.oberlin.edu/kendra-colton)[9]
baritone, Hugh Russell (http://columbia-artists.com/?webid=779)[9]
baritone, Robert Sims [9]
baritone, Mel Ulrich
baritone, David Adam Moore (https://www.davidadammoore.com/)[3][9]
baritone, Frank Hernandez
bass-baritone, Daniel Okulitch (http://www.danielokulitch.com/)
bass-baritone, Donald Bell[11]
bass, Andrew Nolen (http://www.andrewnolen.com)[9]
mezzo-soprano, Marie Lenormand
mezzo-soprano, Liora Grodnikaite
mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Fischer Monastero

Overview of work as teacher and voice scientist

Richard Miller was Wheeler Professor of Performance at Oberlin Conservatory, where he taught 42 years. In addition to founding
and directing the Vocal Arts Center (OBSVAC) at Oberlin Conservatory, he was a member of the Collegium Medicorum Theatri
and American Academy of Teachers of Singing and was on the Otolaryngology Adjunct Staff of the Cleveland Clinic
Foundation.[3]

One remarkable event in his 42 years teaching singing at Oberlin grew out of a great tragedy. On April 30, 1970, as the war in
Vietnam continued to escalate, President Richard M. Nixon announced a U.S. military invasion of Cambodia. Nixon's widening
of the already unpopular war in Indochina sparked protests, especially on college campuses. On May 4, 1970, four antiwar
student protesters were shot to death by the Ohio National Guard on the Kent State University campus and two student protesters
at Jackson State University were killed by Mississippi police. The killings of student protestors led to further anguish and turmoil
on a number of college campuses, including Oberlin, and Oberlin College officially decided to cancel classes for the rest of the
academic year. Oberlin Conservatory students gathered and came up with a plan to take positive action in the face of the killings.
On May 10, 1970, Richard Miller was tenor soloist when Oberlin Conservatory faculty and students traveled to D.C. to express
opposition to war and violence by offering a peaceful musical response to the tragedies: a performance of Mozart's Requiem at
the Washington National Cathedral.[12][13][14]

Miller taught for 28 years at the Mozarteum International Summer Academy in Salzburg, Austria. He presented lectures and
classes at the Paris Conservatory (Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Paris), at the Marseilles National Opera
School, and at Centre Polyphonique.

In 2006, he retired from the Oberlin Conservatory, where he had taught for more than forty years.[9] After retirement, he
continued to teach some masterclasses. Internationally renowned for these masterclasses, he taught in Austria, Australia, Canada,
England, France,[15] Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, and 38 US states.

Awards
In 1989 he received an honorary doctorate from Gustavus Adolphus College.

In May 1990, he was decorated Chevalier/Officier into the French Order of Arts and Letters at the hand of Madame Régine
Crespin "in recognition of contributions to the art of vocalism in France and throughout the world". In 2006 Miller received the
Voice Education Research Awareness Award from the Voice Foundation[16] for his contributions to the field of voice
communication.[17]

Writings
He has written articles for over 120 professional journals. He also edited several musical anthologies and collections.

His books include:

National Schools of Singing (Scarecrow, 1977, reissued 1997)[18]

The Structure of Singing: System and Art in Vocal Technique (Schirmer Books/Macmillan, 1986) ISBN 978-
0534255350
Training Tenor Voices (Schirmer Books/Macmillan, 1993)
On the Art of Singing (Oxford University Press, 1996)
Singing Schumann: An Interpretive Guide for Performers (Oxford University Press, 1999)
Training Soprano Voices (Oxford University Press, 2000)
Solutions for Singers: Tools for Performers and Teachers (Oxford University Press, 2004)
Securing Baritone, Bass-Baritone, and Bass Voices (Oxford University Press, 2008)

References
1. Moore, Dale (2009). "Richard Miller (1926-2009): In Memoriam: A Very Special Loss of a Very Special Life" (http
s://openmusiclibrary.org/article/78881/). Journal of Singing. 66 (1).
2. Sell, Karen (October 8, 2009). "Richard Miller 1926–2009". Logopedics Phoniatrics Vocology. 34 (3): 98–99.
doi:10.1080/14015430903318916 (https://doi.org/10.1080%2F14015430903318916). eISSN 1651-2022 (https://
www.worldcat.org/issn/1651-2022). ISSN 1401-5439 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/1401-5439).
3. Vest, Jason (2009-07-01). Thomas, Sarah (ed.). "The Legacy of Richard Miller : Remembering a Vocal Giant" (htt
ps://www.csmusic.net/content/articles/the-legacy-of-richard-miller/). Classical Singer. Vol. 22 no. 7. David Wood.
pp. 16–24. Archived (http://web.archive.org/web/20190510081914/https://www.csmusic.net/content/articles/the-le
gacy-of-richard-miller/) from the original on 2019-05-10. Retrieved 2019-05-10.
4. Segall, Grant, "Obituary: Richard Dean Miller, top tenor, scholar and teacher at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music
and Cleveland Clinic," Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 14, 2009 [1] (https://www.cleveland.com/obituaries/index.ssf/
2009/05/richard_dean_miller_top_tenor.html)
 5. Miller, Richard, "Acknowledging an Indebtedness," The Choral Journal, vol. 49, no. 5, 2008, pp. 16–22.[2] (http://
www.jstor.org/stable/23556987)
6. Leslie, Holmes (2007). "A Conversation with Richard Miller" (https://www.questia.com/library/p435534/journal-of-
singing/i2509221/vol-63-no-3-january-february). Journal of Singing. 63 (3).
7. Miller, Richard, "Voice Forum," American Music Teacher, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Nov.-Dec. 1961), p. 19.[3] (http://www.jst
or.org/stable/43536508)
8. Oberlin College Conservatory, "Richard Miller, Founder and Director Emeriti of OBSCVAC,"[4] (https://www.oberli
n.edu/conservatory/divisions/vocal-studies/obsvac/emeriti-faculty)
9. Richardson, William (2007-05-04). "Vocal Concert Celebrates Richard Miller" (http://cdm15963.contentdm.oclc.or
g/cdm/ref/collection/p15963coll9/id/155917). The Oberlin Review. pp. 12, 15. Retrieved 2019-05-11.
10. "Oberlin Conservatory Magazine :: 2005 :: Bel Canto" (http://www2.oberlin.edu/con/connews/2005/accolades.htm
l#7). www2.oberlin.edu. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20060103175213/http://www.oberlin.edu:80/con/c
onnews/2005/accolades.html#7) from the original on January 3, 2006. Retrieved November 29, 2018.
11. "Donald Bell | The Canadian Encyclopedia" (https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/donald-bell-emc).
www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca. Archived (http://web.archive.org/web/20171216090654/http://thecanadianenc
yclopedia.ca/en/article/donald-bell-emc/) from the original on 2019-05-11. Retrieved 2019-05-11.
12. "Students Protest: Make Music, Not War," Music Educators Journal, vol. 57, no. 1, 1970.[5] (http://www.jstor.org/s
table/3392857)
13. Hume, Paul, "Oberlin Requiem," The Washington Post, May 11, 1970, p. C6.
14. See also Hume, Paul, "Music can sing powerfully for peace or war," The Washington Post, July 12, 1970, p. G4.
15. See, e.g., Royaumont Archives program.[6] (http://www.royaumont-archives-et-bibliotheque.fr/opacwebaloes/ima
ges/paragraphes/BHIG/84-85_sessions_etudes.pdf)
16. Voice Foundation Award 2006 (https://voicefoundation.org/annual-symposium/awards-recognizing-excellence/ver
a-award/)
17. "Voice Foundation Honors Richard Miller," Oberlin Conservatory News, 2006.[7] (http://www2.oberlin.edu/con/con
news/2006/accolades.html)
18. Originally titled English, French, German, and Italian Techniques of Singing: A Study in National Tonal
Preferences and How They Relate to Functional Efficiency, reviewed by Wayne Bloomingdale, American Music
Teacher Vol. 27, No. 6 (June–July 1978), p. 36.

External links
Kiesgen, Paul, "How Richard Miller Changed the Way We Think about Singing," Journal of Singing, vol. 63, no. 3
(Jan.-Feb. 2007), pp. 261-261.[8] (https://web.archive.org/web/20120421002358/http://www.articlearchives.com/e
ducation-training/students-student-life/1593689-1.html)
Oberlin College Archives, Richard Miller Papers, 1964-2009. RG 30/411 (http://oberlinarchives.libraryhost.com/?
p=collections/controlcard&id=410)

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