Cacie Miller
New England pianist Cacie Miller began playing piano as a child, participating in recitals and competitions in the coastal Maine area, including Bay Chamber Concerts, Rossini Club and USM Honors Recitals. Her studies were shaped by Rebecca Penneys, Dolores Gadevsky and Robert Glover, with masterclasses by Richard Goode, William Heiles, Ian Hobson, Lorin Hollander, Réne Lecuona, John Milbauer, Joel Schoenhals, Nicola Melville, and others. She studies harpsichord with Charlotte Mattax Moersch. She holds degrees in piano performance (M.M. Houghton College, B.M. University of Southern Maine) and music theory pedagogy (M.A. Eastman School of Music). Cacie will complete the DMA program at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in December 2023, with concentration in piano performance and literature, and a cognate in performance practice. During her time at UIUC, Cacie performed Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the UISO in Fall 2021. Cacie has participated in various festivals, including Interharmony Music Festival (Acqui Terme, Italy), Ian Hobson International Piano Festival (San Juan, Puerto Rico), Summer Piano Institute at UIUC (Urbana, IL), and Chautauqua Summer Festival (Chautauqua, NY).
Cacie enjoys performing music by contemporary composers, and has recently programmed works by H. Leslie Adams, John Corigliano, George Crumb, Georg Banhalmi, Lera Auerbach, and Reena Esmail. She is an active member of New Music Chicago. In addition, she enjoys playing organ and harpsichord, and was a participant in the continuo track at the 2021 Illinois Bach Festival.
A passionate teacher, Cacie has held academic positions teaching piano and music theory at various institutions in the New York state and Chicago areas including College of DuPage, Dominican University, Triton College, The Chicago High School for the Arts and Houghton College. She enjoys chamber and collaborative playing, and has been active in both wind and string chamber groups. In her doctoral thesis and performance, “Composing the Cultural Sustenance: A Pianist’s Case Study in New Chicago Chamber Music for Collective Climate Processing,” Cacie analyzed the music and performance preparation of two newly commissioned works for string and piano chamber ensemble by Shi-An Costello and Samuel Sharp, which she premiered in Fall 2024. Cacie sometimes performs with Chicago ensemble, Missing Piece.