BIOGRAPHY
R. Ward Miller, D.M.A. (b. 1978) grew up in Loachapoka, Alabama, a small farming community near the city of Auburn. He earned his bachelors of music education from Auburn University in 2001, where he served as webmaster, arranger, and an undergraduate teaching assistant with the Auburn University Marching Band. He graduated from Arizona State University in 2003 with a masters in Trombone Performance. While in the Phoenix area, he served as a part time assistant and clinician with the Paradise Valley High School bands, the Mesa Community College Wind Ensemble, and the Phoenix Symphony Guild Youth Orchestra. He taught public school in Alabama for three years, serving as Director of Bands at Andalusia and Pleasant Grove High Schools. In 2006 he accepted a graduate teaching assistantship at The University of Iowa, where he studied with Dr. Myron Welch in Band Conducting. While at Iowa, he also worked as a teaching assistant with the Hawkeye Marching Band, where he wrote, taught, and conducted multiple arrangements and halftime drills. He also conducted the Iowa University Concert Band, as well as the Southeast Iowa Concert Band at Iowa Wesleyan University. He earned the 2008 outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant award for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Dr. Miller graduated in 2011 from the University of Iowa with his D.M.A. in Band Conducting. His dissertation, “Darius Milhaud’s La Création du Monde: The Conductor’s Guide to Performance,” lead to the creation of a new, modern percussion edition of that seminal work, and is a definitive examination of Milhaud’s composition.
From 2008 through 2013, Dr. Miller was the Associate Director of Bands and Director of Athletic Bands at the University of South Alabama, in Mobile. While at South Alabama, Dr. Miller founded the 250 member Jaguar Marching Band, overseeing all recruiting, teaching, and writing for the band. This included the lyrics and music to the school’s fight song. In addition, he directed the basketball pep bands and taught Marching Band Techniques, Brass Methods, Trombone Quartet, Symphony Band, and undergraduate conducting. He also guest conducted the Wind Ensemble, the school's top instrumental concert ensemble.
Dr. Miller has served as the Musical Arranger, Drill Writer, and Assistant Director of the Macy's Great American Marching Band in New York City from 2006 through the present. He was the director of the All-Star Band at the 100th annual Cherry Blossom Parade in Washington, D.C. He has appeared as a guest conductor and clinician to multiple concert honor bands throughout the United States. His marching band arrangements have been performed at competitions, including in Bands of America regionals, by high schools and colleges across the country, as well as the annual Rose Parade in Pasadena, CA. His arrangements have been performed at regular season and bowl games by dozens of college marching bands. He has served as an adjudicator at marching and concert band assessments in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, Utah, and Wisconsin. His arrangements for the 2024 Auburn University marching band’s entry into the Metallica competition were instrumental in that band winning the grand prize. In 2025, his arrangement of “Campus Clash,” as recorded by the Auburn University Marching Band, was selected as the main title theme music for the EA Sports video game College Football 2026. In 2014, his original brass fanfare Change Ringing was selected as one of the winners of the Dallas Wind Symphony’s “Call for Fanfares.” The work was premiered in the summer of 2014 by the TCU Brass Ensemble in the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center (Dallas, TX).
From 2015 through 2019, Dr. Miller served as the Brass Caption Head for the World Class Blue Stars Drum and Bugle Corps of La Crosse, WI. Every year under his leadership, the horn line placed in the top 12 and made finals. The horn line achieved "Box 5" scores in the regular season and in finals in the 2017-2019 seasons. In 2018 and 2019, the horn line and drum corps placed in the top 8. He oversaw the brass ensemble and staff, recruited for the horn line, and administered the Blue Stars brass audition camps throughout the country. He also traveled with the corps for the majority of their tour. In addition to his work with the Blue Stars, Dr. Miller has served as the Brass Arranger and an instructional and design consultant for Minnesota Brass, the Louisiana Stars, the Govenaires, and River City Rhythm. His indoor winds shows have been performed at the WGI Championships in Dayton, Ohio by multiple ensembles.
From 2018-2023, Dr. Miller served as the Education Director for Youth in Music, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit organization that hosts marching band events and clinics throughout the upper Midwest. He maintains ongoing educational consultancies with multiple college and high school programs throughout the United States.
In 2023, Dr. Miller co-authored a textbook with Dr. Cathryn Foster entitled Developing Error Detection Skills in the Wind Band Educator, published by GIA Publications. He is nationally certified by the National Federation of State High School Associations to adjudicate musical events. His arrangements and compositions have been published by the DevMusic Company, and he is a published composer with the Tuba-Euphonium Press. He has had articles published in the Alabreve (Alabama's state music education journal), the Illinois State Music Educators Journal, and the Journal of Band Research, as well as regular articles in School Band and Orchestra Magazine. He is a member of the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). He holds memberships in Pi Kappa Lamba national honorary music society, and Golden Key national honorary society. He currently resides in Minneapolis, MN where he lives a vibrant personal and professional life.