Bored of the music she was working with, Addison Miller started learning how to write her own as a student at Blue Ridge Middle School in Loudoun County, Virginia.
She played the cello, and started recording herself playing different melodies. For fun, she recorded multitrack song covers. Sometimes, she’d look up sheet music of the baseline, then the melody line and the harmony line.
Miller wondered if that was something she could do with her own music. That curiosity prompted her to write her first piece, called “Forest,” and show it to her teacher, who inquired whether it should be played at the spring concert.
Miller conducted while her teacher played the cello, marking the first time she got to conduct her own piece.
Now a senior at Loudoun Valley High School, Miller is writing music for school plays and leading her peers. She’s auditioning for colleges, and still figuring out whether she wants to take the composition path, write music for movies or be a private teacher and performer simultaneously.
“Composing has taught me to always jump at the opportunity, even if I’m unsure,” Miller said.
When Miller was 4 years old, her parents bought her a toy piano, which sparked her interest in music. She started taking piano lessons soon thereafter, but said she quit, because she didn’t like the teacher telling her what to play.
She decided to start playing the cello in the third grade, and has stuck to it ever since. After she finished writing her first piece, she had an itch to continue.
“I just wanted to keep writing and keep experimenting,” Miller said.
As an eighth grader, she wrote “Marvel’s Backup Song,” but it was never performed because the pandemic hit. That changed late last year.
Jennifer Galang had Blue Ridge Middle’s orchestra learn the song, and invited Miller back to conduct. The students had been practicing and enjoying it, Galang told Miller.
So in December, with her sister playing violin in the orchestra, Miller returned to the school that gave her the chance to capitalize on her creativity.
“It was kind of surreal,” Miller said of the experience. “I mean, just being back on that stage where I first conducted anything, and it was the same podium, and I was conducting kids that were my age when I wrote that piece. It was a lot to wrap my head around.”
Miller has always been advanced, playing with the seventh grade orchestra as a sixth grader and with the eighth grade orchestra as a seventh grader.
As a junior, she wrote 20 to 30 minutes of a piano score for the spring play. Miller wrote more music for a different play, and most of the critics at the show mentioned her music in their reviews.
Kelly Holowecki, director of choirs and orchestras at Loudoun Valley, said Miller stood out during her audition at the high school. Now, she’s catching the attention, and ears, of her peers.
“They eat up everything that she says and puts in front of them,” Holowecki said. “They love her music. She’s a great leader for the orchestra. And when she’s in front of them, you can see the attention, and they’re very ready.”
Miller also plays field hockey, and is in the top 5% of her class. But still, it’s her love of creating music that motivates her every day.
“I really couldn’t imagine myself not doing music full time,” Miller said. “I couldn’t really see myself being happy doing anything else.”
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