Richard Miller

Richard Miller (April 9, 1926 – May 5, 2009) was a professor of singing at Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and the author of numerous books on singing technique and vocal pedagogy. He also sang recitals, oratorios, and numerous roles as a lyric tenor with major opera companies in Europe and America. Early life and career Richard Miller was born April 9, 1926, in Canton, Ohio, as the youngest of 5 children. He began singing publicly at age three and a half. Before his voice changed, at age 11, he sang hundreds of times in the Canton, Ohio, area. Advised not to sing during the voice-change period, he studied piano, cello, and organ, but then returned to singing, in musicals at Lincoln High School in Canton. He was drafted upon graduation from high school in 1944, assigned to the 7th Armored Division tank corps and sent to the European theater in January 1945, attached to the British First Army. Stationed near Marseilles after the end of hostilities, he took voice lessons with baritone Edouard Tyrand at the Marseilles Conservatory. Returning to the U.S. after the war, he pursued undergraduate studies at Westminster Choir College in Princeton NJ before transferring to University of Michigan. While in Princeton he met his future wife, linguist and choral singer Mary Dagger. They married in 1950, in Washington, DC. He earned his M.Mus. degree in musicology from the University of Michigan and was then awarded a Fulbright Grant to study voice in Rome, Italy, at l’Accademia di Santa Cecilia. Accompanied by his wife, Mary Norman Dagger Miller, in 1951 he traveled to Italy, where the couple lived for two years. In Rome, he studied with Luigi Ricci. He then went on to sing for four years as leading lyric tenor at the opera house in Zürich, Switzerland. Two of the Millers' five children where born in those years.