Thornton Miller Jr
Instructional Assistant Professor of Musicology
School of Music
Office
Julian Hall - JH 61
Office Hours
Mondays and Wednesdays at 10:00-10:50am
Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11:00-11:50am
Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11:00-11:50am
Office Phone
Email
- About
- Education
- Awards & Honors
- Research
Biography
Thornton Miller is a musicologist specializing in Anglo-Soviet musical diplomacy during the Cold War. He has received support from the Fulbright, Title VIII, and the Linda Shaver-Gleason Award.
Current Courses
389.001Popular Music and Politics
489.001Popular Music and Politics
121.001Texts & Contexts: Music
121.002Texts & Contexts: Music
121.003Texts & Contexts: Music
121.004Texts & Contexts: Music
156.001American Music as Cultural History
152.006Experiencing Music
152.007Experiencing Music
121.001Texts & Contexts: Music
121.002Texts & Contexts: Music
Teaching Interests & Areas
20th Century Music History
Popular Music and Politics
World Music
Research Methods
Research Interests & Areas
British and Soviet Music History
Cultural Diplomacy
Cold War Studies
PhD Musicology
Univesity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
MM Music Literature
University of Houston
MM Cello Performance
University of Houston
BM Cello Performance
University of Missouri
Linda Shaver-Gleason Award
North American British Music Studies Association
2022
Book Review
Miller, T. Essays on Benjamin Britten from a Centenary Symposium. NABMSA Reviews 6.2 (2019)
Miller, T. Middlebrow Modernism: Britten’s Operas and the Great Divide. NABMSA Reviews 6.1 (2019)
Book, Chapter
Miller, T. Is the Individual or the Collective First and Foremost in Britten’s ‘Peter Grimes?’. Aesthetics in Opera II. Monopoly (2019): 141-60.
Miller, T. Striking a Compromise: Britten, British Publishers, Soviet Theaters, and the Premieres of Peter Grimes and The Prince of the Pagodas. Benjamin Britten Studies: Essays on An Inexplicit Art. Boydell & Brewer (2017): 377-401.
Journal Article
Miller, T. Uncertainty and the Taboo in Biographical Research: On the Backlash to Britten’s Syphilitic Heart. British Music 43 (2021): 41-62.
Miller, T. Incompatible Interpretations of Operatic Realism: Rockwell Kent and the Kirov Theater’s Production of Peter Grimes. Art of Music: Theory and History 22/23 (2020): 254-79.
Presentations
Projecting Britishness to the Soviet Union: Music Coverage in Britain’s Russian-Language Journal Angliia. AMS National Conference. American Musicological Society. (2023)
Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony. Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony. Houston Symphony. (2022)
Settling the Score: Leoš Janáček, Sinfonietta; and Béla Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra. Texas Music Festival. University of Houston. (2022)
Settling the Score: Richard Strauss, Don Juan; George Gershwin, Second Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra; Franz Schubert, String Quartet in D minor (Death of the Maiden), orchestrated by András Vass. Texas Music Festival. University of Houston. (2022)
State Mandated Positivity: Music in Great Britain’s Russian-Language Journal Angliia. AMS-Midwest Chapter Meeting. Bowling Green State Univeristy. (2022)
An Ill-Fated Collaboration: Conflicting Conceptions of Realism in the Soviet Premiere of Peter Grimes. NABMSA Biennial Conference. Illinois State University. (2020)
Questioning Martin Cooper’s Doubts on the Post-Stalinist Reappraisal of Benjamin Britten. AMS-Midwest Chapter Meeting. University of Missouri, Kansas City. (2019)
Stifling Anti-Imperial Expression: The British Government’s Efforts to Prevent the Composition of Alan Bush’s Opera The Sugar Reapers. AMS National Conference. American Musicological Society. (2019)
Two Distinct Systems of Belief: Religious Expression in Soviet Music and Musicians’ Belief in the Soviet System. ASEEES National Conference. Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. (2019)
Agency and Access: The Soviet Performance of British Contemporary Music during the Early Cold War. Noontime Lecture Series. University of Illinois. (2018)
Grants & Contracts
Fulbright US Student Award. US State Department. Federal. (2018)