Roger Clark Miller, a co-founder and front man of the art-punk band Mission of Burma and a member of Alloy Orchestra, performs compositions from his newest album, “Curiosity for Solo Electric Guitar Ensemble,” based on photos taken by NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover, and his signature “Dream Interpretations.”
To perform as a “Solo Electric Guitar Ensemble,” Miller uses multiple lap-steel guitars on stands, guitar stomp-boxes, and a Boomerang III Looper to create an enveloping sound palette. He sits in his “cockpit,” able to reach all four guitars and a plethora of pedals from one position.
Miller’s latest album is an expansion upon his previous ground-breaking release “Eight Dream Interpretations for Solo Electric Guitar Ensemble,” which he performed at BMAC in 2022. The structure of the music is based on Miller’s dreams and the Dream Interpretation technique he developed in 1975 as a student at Thomas Jefferson College. By translating a dream into music, Miller creates a structure that is organic and personal, yet universal. Dream logic is not day-to-day logic, and the music follows this deeper unconscious thread.
In the piece “Curiosity on Mars,” Miller revisited his “Natural Phenomena” composing technique to structure the music of a longer composition. While occasionally impressionistic, the music primarily follows the specific arrangement and shapes of rocks and minerals in the photographs taken by the Mars rover.
The concert begins with an opening performance by Michael Bierylo, the solo electronic artist known as embee, who plays the modular synthesizer.
Miller’s compositions have been performed at New England Conservatory (NEC), Tufts University, and elsewhere. At NEC’s Jordan Hall in 2015, he played electric guitar with a large chamber ensemble for his setting of the Epic of Gilgamesh, “Scream, Gilgamesh, Scream.”
Bierylo is a member of Birdsongs of the Mesozoic. He has performed throughout the United States, as well as in Berlin, Shanghai, and Krakow.