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Sue Miller – Cuban Flute Improviser, Writer & Academic

Teaching music theory in UK higher education today: contexts and commentaries

Teaching music theory in UK higher education today: contexts and commentaries
This multi-authored article offers accounts of how programmes for teaching music theory within the Western-notated tradition were created in two UK higher education institutions. These accounts are followed by two more discursive reflections on the nature and purpose of music education today, advocating the importance of listening skills and inclusive pedagogies. The article is framed by an introduction and conclusion contextualising the issues raised in relation to a selection of prior contributions to Music Education Research and comparing approaches to music literacy and theory teaching as represented in recent music theory conferences in the UK and the United States.

Journal Article on Richard Egues and Rafael Bacallao in Ethnomusicology Forum Journal

An article co-authored by Professor Sue Miller, Guillermo Davis and Dr Sarah Bowen is published in a special issue of the journal Ethnomusicology Forum (June 2022). In it the flute solo of Richard Egües together with the dancing of Rafael Bacallao in Orquesta Aragon are analysed and the article is open access available here online […]

A musico-choreographic analysis of a Cuban dance routine: a performance-informed approach

The research is based on the analysis of a live performance on Cuban television of ‘Los Problemas de Atilana’ by Orquesta Aragón in the early 1960s, where musical gestures are shown to be embodied in the flute and dance solo ‘duet’ performed by Cuban flautist Richard Egües and dancer Rafael Bacallao, revealing the shared memories of a community bound by common cultural experience. Interdisciplinary in nature, analysis is undertaken by a musician-scholar, a film scholar-practitioner and a professional Cuban dancer-animator in order to unearth details of this embodied repertoire, thus translating and making overt culturally implicit knowledge for those outside of the artistic community of practice, and, in some cases, within it.

Recontextualising Ragtime: Connections, Influences, Perspectives A two-day symposium 6&7 May 2017

Recontextualising Ragtime: Connections, Influences, Perspectives

A two-day symposium
6&7 May 2017

Location: Heritage Quay at the University of Huddersfield, UK
Organised by: Prof. Rachel Cowgill (University of Huddersfield) and Dr Sue Miller (Leeds Beckett University) in association with Heritage Quay at the University of Huddersfield

Review in Ethnomusicology Forum Journal

Sue Miller’s monograph on Cuban flute style will be of interest to ethnomusicologists and flautists alike. It is a clearly written, highly musical book that serves as both a guide to performance practice and an academic text. Miller brings together performance as a research technique, interviews with musicians, lessons with renowned flautists, and detailed and extensive transcription and analysis of recordings to create a ‘musical archaeology’ (246) of creative processes, interpretation and improvisation in Cuban charanga flute performance.

Music and Revolution: Cultural Change in Socialist Cuba

Review of Robin Moore’s book Music and Revolution: Cultural Change in Socialist Cuba in Cultural Politics Journal Volume 03 Issue 02 July 2007, p265 -268: BOOK REVIEW Cultural Policy and Music Making in Revolutionary Cuba Sue Miller Music and Revolution: Cultural Change in Socialist Cuba, by Robin D. Moore, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of […]

Interview with Richard Egües

The following interview took place between Sue Miller and  Richard Egües, flautist from Orquesta Aragón at Richard’s home in Santo Suares,  Havana  in April 2000 SM: Where were you born and how did you begin your musical career? RE: I was born in a small village called Cruces, when it was part of the former […]

The Charanga Flute Players of Cuba

Article written for the British Flute Society Journal PAN on the Charanga Flute players of Cuba, focussing on the work of Richard Egües, Antonio Arcaño, José Fajardo, Eddie Zervigon, Joaquín Oliveros and Eduardo Rubio.

Interview with Melquiades Fundora

The following interview took place in Havana in 2001. SM: Interview: MF: My name is Melquiades Fundora Dina. I was born in Nueva Paz, a village just outside Havana, on 20 March 1926. My first teachers were my parents. My mother played the double bass and my father the trumpet. I learnt to read and […]

Cuba’s Charanga Flute Style

The following article was written for the British Flute Society Magazine – PAN: March 2003. Some people confuse the Cuban style of music with Jazz. In fact, the Charanga is quite different. Sue Miller examines the Charanga flute styles of Richard Egües, Eduardo Rubio (both from Orquesta Aragón) and Melquiades Fundora (from Orquesta Sublime). You […]

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