nothin Yale’s Music Ambassador Falls To His Death | New Haven Independent

Yale’s Music Ambassador
Falls To His Death

Sarah Vanderbilt Photo

John Miller brought music from Yale to New Haven’s public schools. His life ended in tragedy Thursday morning when he apparently jumped out of a fourth-floor window of a Yale building on Elm Street.

The incident took place at Yale’s Hendrie Hall at 165 Elm St. around 6:30 a.m. Miller jumped from the fourth floor into a rear parking lot.

The Yale Police Department called the death an apparent suicide.”

Linda Koch Lorimer, Yale’s vice president and secretary, announced the news in an email to the university community at 3:50 p.m. Thursday.

Miller was a Class of 07 alumnus of the Yale School of Music. Then he went to work there on staff. He oversaw the Music In The Schools Initiative, which brought music school musicians into city public schools to work with students. Click here, here, and here to read two Independent stories about the program.

We show that music is about expressing yourself and collaborating with so many other mediums,” Miller (pictured) said during one visit to Lincoln-Bassett School in Newhallville. When you combine them together, the experience students can have is tremendous.”

John was well-known and much admired at Yale and in the New Haven and wider communities,” Lorimer said. He worked to link Yale to New Haven as the manager of community programs for the School of Music, she said. She called him a key leader in the School’s programs with the New Haven Public Schools.”

Miller was found early this morning on the pavement behind Hendrie Hall, having died in a fall from the fourth floor,” Lorimer said.

Hendrie Hall is home to the School of Music’s opera, brass, and percussion departments. It has studios for faculty, rehearsal space, and practice rooms. The building also has offices and practice space for undergraduate musical organizations.

The building remained closed Thursday while police investigated the incident.

Meanwhile, Lorimer said Miller’s parents visited New Haven; the School of Music dean gathered that school’s community together. Yale is offering counseling at Yale Health at 203.432.0290 or, after hours, at 203.432.0123. The Yale chaplain is available at 203.432.1128.

This is a very difficult time for those who knew John,” Lorimer said, and our thoughts and prayers are with his family, friends, and colleagues.”

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