PHILIP MILLER BIOGRAPHY

Philip Miller is a South African composer who works in film, video and live performance.

Miller has worked with some of the most innovative filmmakers to emerge from South Africa in recent years, composing music to the soundtracks to many local and international films and television productions, including the acclaimed and award –winning drama TV series Yizo Yizo, directed by Oscar nominee, Angus Gibson and Teboho Mahlatsi.

In 2004 and 2005, Miller completed the soundtracks to three new South African feature films – they include: Ian Gabriel’s Forgiveness, Teddy Mattera’s Max and Mona and Revel Fox’s The Flyer which have been shown at many international film festivals. For the film, Forgiveness, he was awarded the Golden Horn for best soundtrack by the South African Film and Television Awards .

In 2006, Miller completed the soundtrack to the film Catch a Fire directed by the acclaimed film director, Philip Noyce released by Working Title Films. He also completed Tebogo Mahlatsi’s short film, Meokgo and The Stickfighter, especially commissioned by Peter Sellar’s film series on Mozart for Venice Film Festival.

Miller has worked with a wide range of video artists in South Africa. In particular, he has collaborated extensively with the internationally acclaimed artist, William Kentridge composing soundtracks to many of his animation films, which have been exhibited all over the world, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the Serpentine Gallery and Tate Modern in London. Some of the films, Miller has worked on, are: Felix in Exile(1994), Weighing and Wanting ( 1996), Stereoscope (1999), Medicine Chest (2000), and Journey to the Moon ( 2003).

After over a decade of collaboration with William Kentridge, Miller has toured
9 Drawings for Projection, a concert where 9 of Kentridge’s films are shown, accompanied by his music, performed live by a music ensemble .
It has been performed at the Barbican Centre, London, Central Park, The Celebrate Brooklyn Festival, New York the Melbourne Commonwealth Games, in Australia, the Guggenheim Museum, Berlin and at many festivals in Europe .

Miller has also produced a number of albums including arrangements of traditional South African lullabies, The Thula Project, The soundtrack to Kentridge’s Black Box/ Chambre Noir and 9 Drawings for Projection by William Kentridge.

Miller has just completed Rewind, a Cantata based on testimonies recorded from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which was performed at St.George’s Cathedral for the Spier Summer Arts Festival on the 16th of December 2006 and had its US Premiere in New York at the Celebrate Brooklyn Festival 2007 .