Miller-Porfiris Duo
The Miller-Porfiris Duo has been delighting audiences since 2005. Recent seasons have seen tours around the United States, Europe, Taiwan and Israel; appearances on the Chamber Music of Little Rock, Chamber Music Pittsburgh, Tel Aviv Museum, and Sheldon Friends of Music series; and collaborations with Lynn Harrell, Jamie Laredo, and Joseph Kalichstein.
On faculty of the Hartt School in Connecticut, the duo has been in residency and given seminars and masterclasses at festivals and institutions such as New York University, Duke University, Kutztown University, Foulger Festival, St. George International Festival in Greece, ARIA International Arts Academy at Mt. Holyoke College, Three Bridges International Chamber Music Festival at the University of Minnesota Duluth, the Festival Eterna Primavera in Cuernavaca Mexico, Conciertos de la Villa Santo Domingo, the Harpa International Music Academy, and the Iceland Academy for the Arts. They are co-directors of the Point Counterpoint Chamber Music camp for High School students in Vermont.
Committed to expanding the repertoire for violin and viola, in 2010 they commissioned and recorded 3 new works for violin and viola by Belize-born British composer Errollyn Wallen, Argentinean composer Mario Diaz Gavier, and American composer Libby Larsen for their debut CD “Five Postcards.” Their second CD, titled “Eight Pieces” and released in 2013, was deemed a “fine new recording” and praised for its “wonderfully smooth ensemble work” and “vibrant and focused” playing by Gramophone and Audible Audiophile Magazines. Recent acclaim from Fanfare for the Duo's third CD, entitled "Divertimenti" declares their playing "a lightning bolt" and speaks to the "color, fire, and passion."
"Violinist Anton Miller and violist Rita Porfiris sailed through the piece with admirable expressive flair and technical poise, smoothly backed by conductor and ensemble. The soloists tossed in a welcome encore -- a souped-up version of the Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia that included a wry touch of Piazzolla -- and played the heck out of it"
-Baltimore Sun
"The troupe navigated the complex counterpoint well in movement one. Soloists play well together, assisted by their constant attention to each other’s performance nuances.
The attention produced an excellent show for the Miller-Porfiris Duo with standing, cheering patrons wanting more." - Lincoln Journal-Star
Anton Miller - violin
Since giving his Carnegie Hall concerto debut, American violinist ANTON MILLER has appeared throughout the United States and abroad as a soloist, chamber musician, recitalist, and pedagogue.
Mr. Miller has performed over fifty violin concertos with a number of orchestras on four continents. His world premiere performance of Xiogang Ye’s “Last Paradise” for violin and orchestra in Beijing, China with the Central Philharmonic Orchestra was recorded for broadcast throughout Asia and released on CD. Mr. Miller has also been concertmaster for a number of orchestras including almost thirty years with Lincoln Symphony Orchestra and the New Jersey Festival Orchestra. He was also concertmaster for an Argentinian tour of the American Ballet Theatre.
He has made a number of recital and chamber music tours to Europe with performances in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Greece and England. A long time resident of the East Coast, Anton has performed more than a hundred chamber music concerts and recitals in the New York City area. Performances have included such venues as Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall and Merkin Hall. Mr. Miller’s dedication to expanding the violin repertoire can be seen in his frequent commissions and premieres of the music of living composers. Recently recorded and released CDs include three albums with violist Rita Porfiris (Miller-Porfiris Duo) one of which features new music for violin and viola by composers of the Americas. Another newly released CD features Kurt Weill's Violin Concerto. Anton's complete discography can be found on Dorian, Jericho, Full House, Hugo, Naxos, Klavier and MP2 Records.
Anton Miller completed his Master of Music degree at The Juilliard School studying with renowned violin pedagogue Dorothy DeLay and chamber music with Felix Galimir and members of the Juilliard Quartet. He received his Bachelor of Music Degree from Indiana University as a student of Franco Gulli and was awarded the prestigious Performer’s Certificate.
He is currently Professor of Violin at The Hartt School and Co-Director of Music at the Point CounterPoint Chamber Festival in Vermont. He previously has been on the faculty of New York University, the Oberlin Conservatory, Lawrence University, and Swarthmore College. Mr. Miller was a founder and Artistic Director of the Three Bridges International Chamber Music Festival in Minnesota, as well as a co-Artistic Director of the Silver Bay Festival. Past and current festival faculty positions also include Foulger International Music Academy, the Intensive String Quartet Workshop at New York University, Aria International Academy, the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, the Festival Eterna Primavera in Cuernavaca, Mexico, the Summer Festival of Thessaloniki, Musicorda, Hsing Tien Kon (Taiwan), Bearstown (Korea), Killington, Hot Springs, and New Arts Festival. As a chamber musician he can be heard in concert with the Miller-Porfiris Duo, QuartetES, Con Brio Ensemble and the Phenix Ensemble.
Rita Porfiris - viola
Violist RITA PORFIRIS has performed in major concert halls and music festivals worldwide as a chamber musician, orchestral musician, and as a soloist.
Currently the Associate Professor of Viola and Director of Chamber Music at The Hartt School, as well as Co-Director of Music at the Point CounterPoint Chamber Festival in Vermont, she has also been on the faculties of New York University, the University of Houston Moores’ School of Music, Florida International University, and the Harlem School for the Arts in New York. She has given master classes, lectures and clinics across the U.S., United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Argentina, Brazil, Iceland, and the Dominican Republic.
Ms. Porfiris is a member of QuartetES and the Miller-Porfiris Duo. As a founding member of the Plymouth Quartet, she was in-residence at the Ojai Festival, Mainly Mozart, Point Counterpoint, and the Internationale Quartettakademie Prag-Wien-Budapest. She was the recipient of Austria’s prestigious Prix Mercure, a prize winner in the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition and the Primrose International Viola Competition, and a laureate of the Paolo Borciani International Quartet Competition.
In her 20 year-long career as an orchestral musician, 15 years of which were spent with the Houston Symphony, she worked under some of the most recognized conductors of the 20-21 Centuries, including Leonard Bernstein, Sergiu Celibidache, Kurt Masur, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Christoph Eschenbach. Equally at home in a.wide variety of genres, Rita has shared the stage with Burt Bacharach, Ray Charles, Bernadette Peters, Lyle Lovett, Rod Stewart, and Tony Bennett, to name a few.
Highlights of recent seasons include sold-out Bartok Concerto appearances at the historic Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Germany, and a performance of the rarely played Romantic Rhapsody for Violin, Viola and Orchestra by Arthur Benjamin as part of the Miller-Porfiris Duo. In May 2016, the Baltimore Sun declared "Rita Porfiris proved an ideal soloist, as much for her richness of tone and impeccable articulation as for the warmth and subtlety of her phrasing."
Rita’s transcriptions for the viola of both classical music staples and pop favorites have been enjoyed worldwide by audiences and performers. Gramophone Magazine called her transcription of Gliere’s Eight Pieces Op. 39, recorded on the Miller-Porfiris Duo’s second CD “Eight Pieces,” "satisfying" and "sung with beautiful warmth."
Ms. Porfiris received both her BM and MM in Viola Performance from The Juilliard School, studying with William Lincer. Other teachers and mentors included Paul Doktor, Norbert Brainin, and Harvey Shapiro.