David Alan Miller is the long-time conductor of the
Albany Symphony Orchestra, leading the orchestra to a Grammy Award. He is also the founder of a contemporary ensemble, the
Dogs of Desire.
Miller was born in Los Angeles in 1961. He attended the University of California at Berkeley for his bachelor's degree, then he pursued graduate studies at Juilliard, where he received his master's degree in conducting.
Miller was the music director of the New York Youth Symphony from 1982 until 1988 and served as a conducting fellow and associate director at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute. In 1987, he was named assistant conductor of the
Los Angeles Philharmonic by
André Previn and became associate conductor in 1990. Since 1992, he has been the conductor of the
Albany Symphony Orchestra, where he has premiered works by contemporary American composers, and in 1998 he founded an annual American Music Festival for presenting new works.
Miller also established a contemporary music ensemble in 1994, the
Dogs of Desire, which is made up of members of the
Albany Symphony. The group regularly commissions and performs new works by young American composers.
Miller has conducted many orchestras as a guest conductor, appearing with the
Los Angeles Philharmonic, the
New World Symphony, the
Boston Pops, and other orchestras in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia. He has recorded extensively for Naxos and Albany Records.
Miller won a Grammy Award in 2014 for a recording of
John Corigliano's Conjurer, with the
Albany Symphony and featuring
Evelyn Glennie. In 2019,
Miller led the
Albany Symphony on two Grammy-nominated albums,
Michael Torke: Sky, featuring
Tessa Lark on Albany Records, and
Derek Bermel: Migrations on Naxos.