Conductor Miller Tailors the Old for the New

According to the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s “Symphonies for Youth” brochure, Saturday’s season-opening concert, “Beethoven Back to the Future,” will feature a time-machine visit from the composer himself. Does this mean, then, that there will be an actor impersonating Beethoven?

“No,” said David Alan Miller, the Philharmonic assistant conductor in charge of the Saturday morning concerts. “There will be a conductor impersonating Beethoven--costume, wig, accent and all.”

Such a tactic illustrates what is at once the 26-year-old Miller’s greatest challenge and greatest joy: finding ways to make classical music come alive for children who are bred on pop records and MTV.

At last season’s closing concert on overtures, for instance, he told the audience about the “shut up” overture, so called because it is written to make concert-goers stop talking and listen to the music. And for the Feb. 13 concert, “Will the Real Igor Stravinsky Please Stand Up?” five orchestra members will impersonate the composer, in a game-show format.

“I’ll do anything I have to do to inspire kids, give them a positive experience with this kind of music,” Miller said at his Dorothy Chandler Pavilion home base. “So much of the press classical music gets is that it’s slow, dull, boring. If I can make kids associate classical music with fun, that’s the most important thing. And if I teach them something along the way, that’s great.

“Some people say, ‘Oh, you do children’s concerts,’ ” he said, his tone disdainful in imitation. “Well, I’m proud of that. I think I do some of the most important work at the Philharmonic, because it’s through these concerts that we’re building audiences of the future, and perhaps composers and players as well.”

Conducting for children requires a somewhat different set of qualifications than leading adult-oriented programs, Miller has discovered. “You still have to know how to make the music sound good, because kids know quality. But communication skills are so important. You have to come out and talk, play two minutes, talk some more, maybe show something visual on a screen, involve the audience and keep everything on schedule to clock in at 50 minutes. Sometimes I feel a little like David Wolper putting together the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies.”

Saturday’s performance will mark the beginning of Miller’s second season producing the “Symphonies for Youth” concerts, which involves creating program concepts, choosing music and writing narration in addition to conducting. He also participates in community outreach programs and conducts the Philharmonic at concerts in the L.A. public schools.

The Los Angeles native, who studied at UC Berkeley and Juilliard, was invited to take on the position by Andre Previn. The Philharmonic music director had been impressed by Miller’s work as a two-time conducting fellow at the Philharmonic Institute, the orchestra’s summer training program.

For six years, he has also been music director of the New York Youth Symphony, which regularly performs at Carnegie Hall. He is relinquishing that post in June, however, as the weekly commute between coasts has proven too rigorous.

Last July, Miller became one of the Philharmonic’s two assistant conductors. Just three months later, he was called upon to substitute for an ailing Previn for four Pavilion subscription performances. That Pavilion nighttime debut, wrote Times music critic Martin Bernheimer, “bore the markings of the classical ‘star is born’ story. . . . (Miller) rose to (the music’s) challenges with poise and promise.”

“It was the most thrilling week of my life,” Miller said, eyes alight at the memory. “Usually assistants sit for three or four years before a conductor decides to get sick, if he ever does, and here it was, the second week of the season.

“I had about 36 hours’ notice. Previn was so sweet--he called the day before the first concert, and sounded quite terrible. Even though I felt bad that he was sick, I was so thrilled, I wanted to say, ‘Thank you.’ He understood completely. He snuck in for the last performance, and afterward was very complimentary.”

The orchestra was also supportive, Miller said--not always the case when a conductor is younger than almost everyone he is leading. “I’ve always gotten the sense that the players want me to do well. They’ve never undermined my authority or tried to put something over on me. And that particular week, they were really rooting for me.”

His success has been especially sweet, Miller said, because he and his family regularly attended Philharmonic concerts while he was growing up. He embarked on his musical career after his father, a high school vocal music teacher, and mother, an educational psychologist, encouraged him to learn an instrument.

He chose the trombone, becoming proficient enough to play in youth orchestras. He also studied viola and piano--he still takes weekly lessons on the latter--before deciding, at 15, that he wanted to pursue conducting.

Eventually, Miller said, he would love to have his own orchestra, perhaps while also working with the Philharmonic. “Now, though, I’m very happy doing what I’m doing.” Besides the “Symphonies for Youth” concerts, he will be conducting the Philharmonic’s New Music Group in March and fulfilling duties as associate director of the institute. This summer he will direct two Hollywood Bowl programs, and next season he has a scheduled week of subscription concerts at the Pavilion.

“I’d like to become the kind of conductor Leonard Bernstein is,” he said. “One who never stops thinking deeply about music, never stops digging deeper into the greatness of the great composers. Just beating time is perfunctory. And your life experiences are so important, too, to what you bring to your work. So actually, becoming a great conductor is a 60-year proposition.”