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Tom Miller

Steel Drums Ensemble Director
Newman Center for the Performing Arts, Room 130
303-777-5852
tmille38@du.edu

Focus:

Tom Miller's vast experience as a performer, composer, arranger and educator of steel drum music has made him one of the most respected and sought after steel drum soloists and clinicians today.

Biography

Tom Miller's vast experience as a performer, composer, arranger and educator of steel drum music has made him one of the most respected and sought after steel drum soloists and clinicians today. Tom has performed worldwide with his own popular steel drum group Pan Ramajay, as well as notable pan masters, Andy Narell, Jeff Narell, Ray Holman, Robert Greenridge, Liam Teague, Othello Molineaux and the Our Boys Steel Orchestra. Other credits include renowned Calypsonian David Rudder; bass sensation, Michael Manring; woodwind virtuoso, Paul McCandless; Germany's famed WDR jazz ensemble; the San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Orchestra; and as a member of the Windham Hill recording group, Montreux. He has added his unique style of percussive touch to numerous recordings covering a variety of musical styles with artists such as Grammy award winners, Allison Krause and the late John Denver, blues sensation, Charlie Musselwhite, Allison Brown, and Venezuelan songstress, Maria Marquez. Tom's playing has also been featured on film scores for the movies, Commando, Nina Takes a Lover, and The Mystic Masseur, as well as ads for Minute Maid, Sony, Brodia.com, the SIMs computer games and others. His arrangements and compositions are also featured on the Menus and Music, "Pleasures of the Caribbean," recipe book's accompanying CD.

He is equally as comfortable in the studio as a producer having produced and mixed several critically acclaimed steel band recordings for his own group, Pan Ramajay, as well as master pannist, Ray Holman, The Chabot Panhandlers Steel Orchestra and the Miami University Steel Band.

Tom's composing talents have earned him grants from the prestigious Meet the Composer Foundation five times, fostering the creation, performance and education of audiences through his compositions featuring steel drums and percussion. This dedication to musical education has won Tom many invitations as an artist in residence at numerous universities and colleges throughout the U.S. He currently serves as an adjunct, artist-faculty member of the Lamont School of Music at the University of Denver, Colorado and the University of Alaska Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival. Tom also serves as the curriculum director of the Mannette Steel Drum Workshop in Morgantown, WV.

Tom is the founder and president of one of the foremost steel drum music publishing companies, Pan Ramajay Productions (www.ramajay.com). Pan Ramajay Productions features Tom's own compositions and recordings as well as those of other prominent steel drum composers. The company's catalog has garnered sales of steel drum sheet music and recordings worldwide.