by Miles Walter (2022)
Aspen Chamber Symphony (majority student orchestra; some faculty alongside), Nicholas McGegan, conductor
World premiere, rec. live July 8, 2022
Commissioned by Aspen Music Festival and School, Robert Spano, Music Director

This is the first movement of an incomplete, two-movement symphony.

I might never write anything that sounds like this again... but it was a joy to write, and I somehow feel that the way the architecture unites in the latter half of the movement justifies the borrowings and anachronisms of the whole...

[Walter] Symphony (2022), I. Broad, in flexible tempo

For more info visit:
www.thomasgilessax.com
www.themanaquartet.com

Joel Thompson (b.1988) is an Atlanta-based composer, conductor, pianist, and educator, best known for the choral work, Seven Last Words of the Unarmed, which was premiered November 2015 by the University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club and Dr. Eugene Rogers and won the 2018 American Prize for Choral Composition. His pieces have been performed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Master Chorale, Los Angeles Master Chorale, EXIGENCE, and the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. Currently a student at the Yale School of Music, Thompson was also a 2017 post-graduate fellow in Arizona State University’s Ensemble Lab/Projecting All Voices Initiative and a composition fellow at the 2017 Aspen Music Festival and School, where he studied with composers Stephen Hartke and Christopher Theofanidis and won the 2017 Hermitage Prize. Thompson taught at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School in Atlanta 2015-2017, and also served as Director of Choral Studies and Assistant Professor of Music at Andrew College 2013-2015. Thompson is a proud Emory alum, graduating with a B.A. in Music in 2010, and an M.M. in Choral Conducting in 2013.

Hi there! I'm a composer/musician/whatnot, currently New York adjacent, studying at the Yale School of Music. Contact: aaron.i.levin@gmail.com

mileswalter.net

Upcoming:

-Orchestra work for London Symphony Orchestra (3', 25/26 Panufnik Scheme Composer)
-Residency with Unsuk Chin, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence (summer 2025)
-Piano quartet commissioned by Classeek, premiere Switzerland, May 2025
-Orchestra work commissioned by Orpheus Sinfonia (UK), 10', premiere June 2025, London

SHORT BIO (2025)

American composer and pianist Miles Walter’s Fantasy for piano solo (2024), a three-movement, 25-minute work commissioned by the Venice Biennale for Bertrand Chamayou, was recently hailed as “evoking the young Messiaen” (Classica) and as “one of the most refreshing piano compositions one has heard in recent times…. Don't forget this name” (Scherzo). Miles’s music has been commissioned and performed by ensembles including the London Symphony Orchestra, Orpheus Sinfonia (UK), Aspen Chamber Symphony, Classeek, Argento Ensemble, Lontano Ensemble, New York Virtuoso Singers, Merz Trio, Linos Trio, and Yale Percussion Group, has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and RAI Radio 3, and has received recognition from BMI, Classeek, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. As a pianist, Miles performs fluently and joyfully in numerous styles in and out of the concert hall with many esteemed collaborators. Festival and masterclass credits include Aspen, Norfolk, Bowdoin, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and Prussia Cove. Twice graduated from Yale (BA, MM), Miles also holds a piano degree from the Musik-Akademie Basel where he studied with Claudio Martínez Mehner, and is presently pursuing doctoral studies with Sir George Benjamin.

Composer, poet, drummer, songwriter+vocalist, producer, and multi-instrumentalist. 

This page is mainly for concert music and improvised/jazz work. My solo/studio/"song project" releases can be found in more codified form on my Bandcamp, linked below.

Profile photo by Cyrus Duff