Composer/Pianist James Miley (b. 1967), recipient of the 2004 IAJE/Gil Evans Fellowship in Jazz Composition, made his Carnegie Hall debut as a composer with After the Water, the Clouds, premiered by the James Logan Wind Symphony under the direction of Ramiro Barrera in May, 2006, was a featured composer at the inaugural International Jazz Composers Symposium in the spring of 2006, and was recently commissioned to write new works for the 2007 California All-State Jazz Band and the 2007 Monterey Jazz Next Generation Festival. He has written and arranged music for performances by such artists as Peter Epstein, Tim Ries, Ron Miles, Nancy King and Tony Malaby, and his catalog of compositions for jazz ensemble is available through Walrus Music, Heritage/Lorenz, and UNC Jazz Press.
Miley's latest creative projects include the jazz group BUG (featuring saxophonist Peter Epstein), whose debut recording “Murmur” was released in April, 2007, and the proto-chamber-fusoid-jazz collective Nagging Mother (with trumpeter John Adler and cellist Alan Weinstein). Dr. Miley holds degrees from Occidental College, the University of Arizona and the University of Oregon in addition to coursework at UC Santa Barbara and the California Institute of the Arts. His principal teachers in composition have included Robert Kyr, Jeffrey Stolet, Daniel Asia, Harold Owen, Richard Grayson and William Penn, alongside studies in jazz improvisation and arranging with Steve Owen, Gary Versace, David Roitstein, Larry Koonse and Jeff Haskell. A native of California, James currently coordinates the jazz studies program and teaches composition and music theory at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA, where he lives with his wife, Helen, and their two children.
