Roger Clark Miller in Concert

Roger Clark Miller of Mission of Burma and Alloy Orchestra presents “Eight Dream Interpretations for Solo Electric Guitar Ensemble” and performs songs from throughout his career.

The first half of the concert will feature Miller’s signature “Dream Interpretation” compositions, four of which he performed online in 2020 in connection with the exhibit Transmuting the Prosaic. At this live, in-person, expanded performance, Miller will present eight Dream Interpretations. His new album "Eight Dream Interpretations for Solo Electric Guitar Ensemble" is now out on Cuneiform Records.

To perform as a “Solo Electric Guitar Ensemble,” Miller uses multiple lap-steel guitars on stands, guitar stomp-boxes, and a Boomerang III Looper to create an enveloping sound palette. He sits in his “cockpit,” able to reach all four guitars and a plethora of pedals from one position. The structure of the music is based on Miller’s dreams and the Dream Interpretation technique he developed in 1975 as a student at Thomas Jefferson College. By translating a dream into music, he creates a structure that is organic and personal yet universal. Dream logic is not day-to-day logic, and the music follows this deeper unconscious thread.

In the second half of the show, Miller will play guitar and sing songs from throughout his recorded career, including songs by Mission of Burma, Trinary System, and more, as well as new, unrecorded material.

Miller is a co-founder and front man of the art-punk band Mission of Burma and a member of Alloy Orchestra, a three-person ensemble that Roger Ebert called “the best in the world at accompanying silent films.” His compositions have been performed at the New England Conservatory (NEC), Tufts University, and elsewhere. At NEC’s Jordan Hall in 2015, he played electric guitar with a large chamber ensemble for his setting of the Epic of Gilgamesh, “Scream, Gilgamesh, Scream.”