nothin Requiem For A Town-Gown Inspiration | New Haven Independent

Requiem For A Town-Gown Inspiration

Allan Appel Photo

Ejoel Molina plays “Danny Boy” for John Miller at Daniels Schooly.

He told them the greatest musicians in the world make mistakes every day. If you get lost in a piece, keep playing through, he said: I have your back. And if they came to a performance with bright colored socks? He always had a roll of black duct tape to cover up their ankles.

Those were some of the poignant, funny, and heart-wrenching memories evoked Friday morning as 200 students, family, and friends gathered at the John C. Daniels School in the Hill to celebrate the life of John Miller.

Miller, who inaugurated a music program at the Daniels in 2007 and was the inspirational coordinator of Yale School of Music programs there and throughout the New Haven Public Schools, died in a Sept. 15 fall from the fourth floor of Hendrie Hall at Yale. He was 29 years old.

In a brief life, he set an example for how one of the world’s wealthiest universities can create opportunities for kids in an impoverished city.

Miller.

(Click here for a previous story about Miller’s part in the Morse Music Academy, a summer enrichment program for aspiring young New Haven Public School kids, including master classes with world-class musicians. And here for a 2008 story of how Miller brought the John C. Daniels’s woodwind quintet, newly created then, to perform at a Latino art gallery in Fair Haven.)

Daniels students sang Amazing Grace” Friday morning. Young trombonist Ejoel Molina played a moving and mournful Danny Boy.” Meanwhile, John Miller was hailed as a teacher not only of music, but of music’s values.

Those include discipline, dedication, and passion.

He was more than a teacher. He changed my life completely,” said tenth-grader Katherine Roque, who studied with Miller for two and a half years.

In addition to the Daniels kids whom Miller personally taught, Daniels graduates now in high schools around the city returned to join Miller’s parents and his musical family from Yale Friday to recall an exceptional young man.

Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School music teacher Rachel Antonucci said some of Miller’s students, now in her charge, told her he taught music and also the real stuff. What to wear, how to act. He was one of those teachers who knew all the parents as well as the kids.”

Since last week Antonucci has talked to the kids, many of whom were in pain and tears, about how we can live his legacy, how we can make him proud.”

Yale Trombone Quartet.

After performances by the Yale Trombone Quartet of pieces by Tchaikovsky and Felix Mendelssohn (Miller was himself a trombonist who graduated from the Yale School of Music in 2007) …

… tenth-graders Jose Meza and Jesus Cortez (pictured) performed One Great Leader,” a composition Meza wrote in Miller’s honor.

Four years ago, when Miller arrived at the school, Jose Meza had never played a note of music, let alone even considered the prospect of writing music.

On Friday, he and Jesus stood above a dais decorated with two dozen bouquets of flowers. Jose played on a the trumpet that Miller had procured for him. Jose said he opened up the case with the trumpet the day after Miller died.

That’s when he knew that he and Jesus had to perform at Friday’s event.

Jose and Jesus had never played an instrument before meeting Miller. That was the case for another 12 students as well who, like Jose and Jesus, ended up taking lessons at the Neighborhood Music School and in some instances winning competitions.

Meza said Miller had found the trumpet for him because he knew he was preparing for a regional competition.

I opened it and the sound was very clear. Every time I play on the trumpet, I think of Mr. Miller,” he said.

Miller’s parents Richard and Vee were both in the audience Friday. They heard personal testimonies from more than a dozen kids about how their son had inspired them through and beyond music. Richard Miller, himself a recently retired elementary school teacher, responded, We’ve been asked what you can do for us. Keep John in your hearts. When you get older, be mentors and work in music. You be their hero as John was your hero.”

Mozart and Shubert left us all too soon, as did John,” said Dean Robert Blocker of the Yale Music School. What John gave us could never be counted in years. He gave us our dreams.”

Daniels Principal Gina Wells reported receiving a grant of $500 from the New Haven Garden Club in honor of John Miller’s work. The funds are earmarked for repair of the school’s instruments, almost all of which were obtained by Miller either through grants or creative scrounging.

Wells also said the auditorium was officially named after John Miller and a plaque placed on the wall at the entrance.

Click on the play arrow to hear the closing music of the celebration as the John C. Daniels band and chorus played the traditional Donna Nobis Pacem,” arranged by Paul Jennings.

A cherry tree is also to be planted in Miller’s honor in the courtyard of the school. That final gesture had to be delayed because of Friday’s persistent rain.

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