Described by the LA Times as “deceptively laid back in an LA way…inventive…unconventional,” Alexander Elliott Miller is a Southern California composer whose primary instrument is a Gibson Les Paul.  

Miller’s compositions feature the guitar as a solo instrument with electronic accompaniment or in integrated in contemporary classical chamber ensembles.  His largest projects are ANTIBODYPOLITIC, an album length project of pandemic themed works for electric guitar and synthesizers, and TO….OBLIVION: Historic Landmarks Around Los Angeles, an album released in 2018.  The latter work is a collection of pieces inspired by six lost landmarks in Los Angeles, each of some social or symbolic significance, scored for solo electric guitar, foley-style sound effects, live processing and video slideshow of evolving “then and now" images.  The album received profiles in the LAist and Long Beach Press Telegram, and a 2019 performance at Boston Court Pasadena was listed in the LA Times “8 Best Things to do this Weekend.”  

His music has also been performed by Grammy nominated artists Vicki Ray, Tony Arnold and Aron Kallay, and he has written works featuring his guitar playing for the HOCKET piano duo, Panic Duo, and for his own guitar percussion duo with Ben Phelps.  His guitar and saxophone duo Chaparral, originally commissioned and recorded by the Duo Montagnard, has been frequently included on their concert tours, and further toured and recorded by the Duo Confluence in Italy.  He has received honors including a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, Earplay Donald Aird Composers Award and in 2017, and pianist Vincent Craig performed Miller’s piano solo Actions & Resonances at Carnegie Hall.  

He is a dedicated educator, having had the opportunity to serve for over a decade on the faculty of California State University Long Beach, where he teaches all levels of composition, theory and musicianship at the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music, and at Chapman University.  Miller holds degrees from USC, the Eastman School of Music, and the University of Colorado at Boulder.  He lives in Long Beach, CA, with his girlfriend Christen and their dachshund, Nessie.
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Photo: Andrew Reitsma
LAist: "This Electric Guitar Album Puts You
Inside 6 LA-Area landmarks that are long gone."
"Running Spring" at the Hear Now Music Festival
"Running Spring" composed by Alexander Elliott Miller
Alexander Elliott Miller, electric guitar & electronics
Hear Now Music Festival, 2024
Los Angeles, CA 
Video by Fifth Circle Audio
Long Beach Press Telegram: "This guitarist
wants you to hear the history of Anaheim,
​Long Beach and Los Angeles."
Copyright 2024 Alexander Elliott Miller