New England pianist Cacie Miller began playing piano as a child, participating in recitals and competitions in the coastal Maine area, including Bay Chamber Concerts, Rossini Club and USM Honors Recitals. Her studies were shaped by Rebecca Penneys, Dolores Gadevsky and Robert Glover, with masterclasses by Richard Goode, Lorin Hollander, Réne Lecuona, John Milbauer, Joel Schoenhals, Nicola Melville, and others. She studies harpsichord with Charlotte Mattax Moersch. She holds degrees in piano performance (M.M. Houghton College, B.M. University of Southern Maine) and music theory pedagogy (M.A. Eastman School of Music), and was a participant in the Interharmony Music Festival, Ian Hobson International Piano Festival, Summer Piano Institute at UIUC, and Chautauqua Summer Festival.
Cacie enjoys performing music by contemporary composers, and has recently programmed works by H. Leslie Adams, John Corigliano, George Crumb, Georg Banhalmi, Lera Auerbach, and Reena Esmail. In addition, she enjoys playing organ and harpsichord, and was a participant in the continuo track at the 2021 Illinois Bach Festival.
A passionate teacher, Cacie has held academic positions teaching piano and music theory at various institutions in the New York state and Chicago areas including Dominican University, Triton College, The Chicago High School for the Arts and Houghton College. She enjoys chamber and collaborative playing, and is currently performing both string and wind trios, and recently programmed a trio program with music from women composers from various historical periods. Her doctoral thesis and project recital centered around chamber music that engages with climate change, and she premiered and commissioned two works in this genre by Shi-An Costello and Samuel Sharp. Cacie sometimes performs with Chicago ensemble, Missing Piece.
Cacie is currently in her third year of the DMA program at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she studies with Dr. William Heiles, with cognate studies in performance practice. She was a 2021 concerto competition winner, and performed Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the UISO in Fall 2021.