Bloomberg.com (Jeremy Gerard) 9/9/08
Miller Theatre has become one of the city's most popular venues for new music,
offbeat ensembles, and adventurous concerts.
MusicalAmerica.com (Peter G. Davis) 9/18/08
The whole show was flawlessly presented, superbly coordinated, and wholly mesmerizing.
(writing about Xenakis's opera Oresteia, which opening Miller's 20th Anniversary Season)
Columbia Spectator (Elaine Yeung) 10/9/08
This fall, Miller Theatre ushered in its 20th season with what it does best:
another performance filled with originality, audacity, and flair.
The New York Times (Anthony Tommasini) 10/15/08
It is hard to imagine a more inviting place to hear a Haydn string quartet than Philosophy Hall at Columbia University, especially at noontime with your lunch on your lap...The hall is like a comfortable reading room in an old library. Sponsored by Miller Theatre at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences...this series puts the chamber back into chamber music. And what a splendid way to spend your lunch hour.
Time Out New York—“50 Essential Secrets” Issue 11/1/07
Miller Theatre—WHY ESSENTIAL:
Columbia University’s boxy auditorium is the CBGB of contemporary classical music:
an uninspiring facility (albeit one with nontoxic bathrooms) that has become iconic
through the consistent audacity and inspiration of its musical offerings. Eggheads
and backpackers comfortably commingle in Miller audiences. So where’s the T-shirt?
The New York Times (Anne Midgette) 4/17/07
Four brand-new pieces, four impressive soloists, four distinctive musical styles and not a real clunker in the bunch. This was music as it can and should be, and it happened on Saturday night at the Miller Theater, which rolled out the second installment of its “Pocket Concertos,” a three-year commissioning series.
The New York Observer (Charles Michener) 3/5/07
Columbia University's Miller Theatre roams more widely than any other presenter in town.
Time Out New York (Steve Smith) 2/22/07
Columbia University's Miller Theatre has earned its destination status by making a sexy proposition of concerts devoted to music by the standard pantheon of modernists and minimalists. What's more, executive director George Steel has provided a much-needed platform for underexposed innovators from around the world. Now he's ready to tackle one last major area of repertoire that has mostly eluded New York audiences: edgy contemporary opera, the kind filled with startling ideas and radical techniques.
Bloomberg News 1/26/07
Columbia University’s Miller Theatre—one of the city’s premier new-music showcases.
The Boston Globe (David Weininger) 2/6/06
The electrifying concert was the last of this season’s “Composer Portraits,” which the Gardner has imported from New York’s Miller Theatre. These adventurous offerings have energized Boston’s musical life, and one impatiently awaits their resumption in the fall.
New York Magazine — The Year’s Best: The Cultural Elite 2005 Issue
(Peter G. Davis and Alicia Zuckerman) 12/19/05
BEST NIGHT AT THE BALLET: “WATCHING LIGETI MOVE” at Miller Theatre
BEST MUSIC PROGRAMMING BEFORE 1800 OR AFTER 1990: Miller Theatre
New York Magazine (Alicia Zuckerman) 9/12/05
Isn’t it nice when composers are recognized while they’re still alive?
The New York Times (Allan Kozinn) 9/11/05
Even as Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall have been using their new spaces—Rose Hall and Zankel Hall—to freshen up their programming, neither poses a serious challenge to the Miller Theatre, which for sheer adventurousness remains the place to go.
Travel & Leisure Magazine — September 2005
Miller Theatre continues to present some of the most innovative programming while successfully de-graying New York’s classical audience with low prices and high-quality new and old music.
Time Out New York — 2005 Student Guide
Columbia's Miller Theatre has singlehandedly made contemporary classical music sexy in New York City.
JazzTimes (David Adler) 1/29/05
The Miller Theatre is a treasure, where one can hear everything from Brahms to
Nancarrow for about $20, all season long. The presentations are offbeat and inventive. Steel not only gets why classical music still matters; he also knows how to explain it to a new and growing audience.
The New York Times (Anne Midgette) 10/8/04
Miller Theatre’s Composer Portraits series:
A de facto guide through the wealth and variety of contemporary music.
The Stranger (Christopher DeLaurenti, Seattle, WA) 8/26/04
If only Seattle had a Miller Theatre.
The New York Times (Anthony Tommasini) 10/12/03
Through its adventurous contemporary-music programming and informal atmosphere,
the Miller Theatre offers a model of how to loosen up the classical concert
experience while encouraging concentration among listeners.
Classics Today (Ben Finane) 3/13/03
One would normally be surprised to find a sell-out crowd gathered to hear a program
of spectral music, but at the Miller Theatre such wonders are commonplace.
The New York Times (Anthony Tommasini) 3/28/02
Artists and organizations hoping to revitalize classical music should look to the Miller Theatre for some ideas.
The Financial Times (Martin Bernheimer) 3/12/02
[Miller Theatre] is New York’s happiest haven of musical adventure—a place where progressive impulses are presented without apology or condescension, without a sense of painful duty or artificial sweetening.
The Village Voice — Best of New York Issue (Lara Pellegrinelli) 10/23/01
“Best Place to Hear Contemporary Classical Music: MILLER THEATRE”
Faster than a speeding octet. More powerful than Reich’s Tehillim. Able to leap Antheil’s Airplane Sonata in a single bound. It’s the man of steel, George Steel, programming superhero for Columbia’s Miller Theatre.
The New York Times “Arts & Leisure” (Anthony Tommasini) 4/29/01
Miller attracts lots of eager, curious and notably youngish listeners.
Billboard (Bradley Bambarger) 2/12/00
You wouldn’t have known that Shostakovich was “difficult” from the scene
at the Miller Theatre, the leading-edge venue on the campus of Columbia University
in New York. Nearly 600 amazingly attentive, appreciative students packed the hall.
Le Monde (Renaud Machart) 4/23/99
It may be far uptown, but it’s devilishly lively. At the intersection of 116th and Broadway in Manhattan, a lobby overflows with young people. There is a feeling here that one more often gets downtown, which so often considers itself the sole bastion of the counter-culture in the city. At Miller the season is eclectic and unaffected. The offerings here are modern, diverse, clever, open-minded, and performed with great brio… |
