Toward the Junipers (2025), Alex Miller

My composition is entitled “Toward the Junipers.” The CA Plant Communities zones are geographically larger than other zones closer to the botanical garden entrance, and, timing myself walking through the zone, I realized I could create a large structure that invited listeners to spend time moving gradually through this area. My favorite feature in this section of the garden were the junipers, with their beautiful dense green and wispy branches. I heard acoustic music walking through this section, and wished to write an instrumental acoustic guitar work aiming to capture the wispy-ness of these trees and directing them through the northeast corner of the park.

Described by the LA Times as “deceptively laid back in an LA way…inventive…unconventional,” Alexander Elliott Miller is a Southern California composer and guitarist whose primary instrument is a Gibson Les Paul. Many of Miller’s compositions feature the guitar as a solo instrument with electronic accompaniment or integrated in contemporary classical chamber ensembles. He is a dedicated educator, having had the opportunity to serve for over a decade on the faculty of California State University Long Beach, where he teaches all levels of composition, theory and musicianship at the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music, and at Chapman University. Miller holds degrees from USC, the Eastman School of Music, and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The East CA Plant Communities feature Bay Laurels, Valley Oaks, Conifer Country, Conservation Grove of Scrube Oaks, Baja CA plants (Boojum tree)