Robert O’Connor Miller is a classical guitarist, educator, and entrepreneur based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
A passionate performer and chamber musician, his performances have been described as "intense, emotional and graceful" by the Rochester City Newspaper. His debut duo recording, titled “Corta Jaca,” was reviewed by Classical Guitar Magazine as “effortlessly played,” and “this interpretation is one of the very best I have heard…an outstanding recording of some lovely music in superb performances beautifully captured. One to hunt for!”. He has performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. Recent concerts have taken him to concert halls and guitar festivals in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia and to concerts series throughout the United States.
With a deep belief in the power of the arts and the need for artists to rise up as entrepreneurs and advocates for their craft, Robert co-founded The California Conservatory of Music in 2011. The school currently enriches and empowers the lives of more than 800 students at its two San Francisco Bay Area locations. Recent students of Robert have won top prizes in the Guitar Foundation of America youth divisions, the Christopher Parkening Youth Competition, and the James Stroud Youth Competition, and have been featured on programs such as NPR’s “From the Top.” In 2020, the National YoungArts Foundation recognized Robert for his “support, encouragement, guidance and mentorship” in music education.
To further broaden the way the classical guitar engages with the Bay Area community, Robert co-founded the non-profit, The Peninsula Guitar Series which brings international guitar talent to perform and give masterclasses. An integral part of this organization is called G.O.A.L.S. (Guitar Outreach and Leadership Skills) which links younger students, who would otherwise not have access to music education, with talented high-school-aged guitarists and provides the students with guitars and the necessary learning materials for free.
With an interest in asynchronous learning and online teaching, Robert also co-founded the digital music lesson platform, Practice Space which provides teachers with an avenue to create digital music lessons for their students and also provides the students with a motivating and enriching learning space. The platform currently serves thousands of teachers and students around the world!
Robert received his Bachelor of Music Performance from Ithaca College in 2006, where he studied with classical guitarist Pablo Cohen and jazz guitarist Steve Brown. On the receipt of a graduate scholarship award, he attended the prestigious Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Nicholas Goluses and was awarded a Master of Music Performance. After graduating in 2008, Robert was a fellow with the Belgian American Educational Foundation from which he received a fully-funded stipend to study and concertize in Belgium. There, he furthered his studies at the Lemmensinstituut with a poet of the guitar, Raphaella Smits. The Lemmensinstiuut awarded him master's degrees in both guitar performance and chamber music.