Music For Peace and Meditation - Ashley Miller

 

Music For Peace And Meditation

Music For Peace And Meditation

Ashley Miller, Organist

Decca Records DL 78924

1960

From the back cover: Ashley Miller began studying music at the age of six. He has studied abroad, and as a scholarship student at The Juilliard School, where he worked under Gaston Dethier on organ and with Albert Stoessel in conducting. Mr. Miller's professional debut took the form of a series of concert recitals on WQXR. At the same time, it is interesting to note, he was staff organist for another station, specializing in popular music. Mr. Miller explains this seeming paradox, which has become so characteristic of his career, in this way: "The requirements of the classic concept, with its emphasis on discipline and training are often thought to be at variance with the free and easy feeling of creative popular music. However, rather than one being the antithesis of the other, they are complimentary." As if to prove hie theory beyond a shadow of a doubt, Mr. Miller has been engaged, simultaneously, as organist for the New York Society for Ethical Culture and Radio City Music Hall. 

In addition to his skill as a performer, Mr. Miller has proved his mettle in the fields of arranging and composing. In the role of composer, he has written for piano, organ, band and chamber groups. One of his band works has been performed by Paul Lavalle, and his Rhapsody For Strings was conducted by Alfred Wallenstein.

The console on which Ashley Miller performs his Music For Peace And Meditation was built by the Wicks Organ Company, and specially designed for serious music of all schools and periods. Newly installed in the meeting house of The New York Society for Ethical Culture, it is a three-manual, forty one rank organ with an open, exposed Great section. The enclosed Swell and Choir sections are on the opposite sides of the auditorium and blend as a unit.

Largetto In A Flat Minor

Meditation

A Lovely Rose Is Blooming

My Heart Is Filled With Longing

Choral Prelude - On A Melody by Orlando Gibbons

Cantabile

Adagio

Prelude In B Flat Minor

Be Glad My Soul

Choral