Video Interview. PCN-TV, “PA Books” Dec 2008. |
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Original Music on Violin and Mandolin (Acoustic & Electric) * The Joe Strummer Foundation for New Music has offered grant In order for this great opportunity to become a reality, further |
Artist Biography
Lisa A. Miles is a professional creative artist based in Pittsburgh, Pa. She received a B.A. in English from Youngstown State University, with an Applied Music minor. Lisa has been recognized by Cambridge University’s Who’s Who as a leader in the Creative Arts for her work of the last twenty-five years in performing and composing music and cross-disciplinary pieces, researching and writing two books, and teaching, working therapeutically and speaking extensively from pre-K through college, along with teacher professional development.
All of Lisa’s work was featured on KDKA-TV’s “Pgh. Today Live” in December 2009. As a Creative Consultant & Speaker, she gave the Keynote Address at the Pa. Assn. of Rehab. Facilities’ Annual Conference in State College, Sept. 2009 on Creativity, Personal power and the ‘Nature of Help’ for those physically and mentally disabled.
Lisa has begun to do creative and historical research consulting on projects of interest in the Spring of 2010– for the Mexican War Streets Society extended neighborhood historical designation and for October Development. Lisa also presented June 2010 at The Historical Society (Boston-based) Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. on Stimulating Communities Via Their History.
Lisa has been invited for a second time to present at the annual state conference of NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill) in Harrisburg, July 2010. She was a speaker April 2010 at the Pennsylvania Hospital/University of Pennsylvania’s History of Women’s Health Conference in Philadelphia, and was also for the second time an invited panelist for Seton Hill University’s Women in Art panel, Nov. 2009. As well, in clinical application, she conducted a Creative Therapy Workshop/Staff Professional Development at the Defense & Veterans Brain Injury Center in Johnstown, PA., Fall 2009.
As an independent scholar, Lisa published her second book in 2007– “Resurrecting Allegheny City:Â The Land, Structures & People of Pittsburgh’s North Side.” It was sponsored by a substantial grant from the PA Historical & Museum Commission and the Buhl Foundation. Selling out after less than four weeks, and consistently selling thereafter, it is now a regional Best-Seller in Third Printing. Lisa continued to support this book through ’09 with discussions and educational programming at state historical societies and various community organizations. Included were a series of five in Butler County for which she received a PA Humanities Council grant, and a series of workshops funded by the Buhl Foundation for at-risk youth, looking at the intersections of history and current-day civic engagement. The latter had a major community component– a culminating Showcase at renowned telescope maker John Brashear’s old house and factory. Among Lisa’s work, with support from community grants and in collaboration with Perry Hilltop Citizen’s Council, is the historic designation and usage of the Brashear structures.
Lisa’s 460-page biography/cultural essay “This Fantastic Struggle:Â The Life and Art of Esther Phillips” was first published at the end of 2002. She received grants for a portion of this work from the Pittsburgh Foundation and PA Council on the Arts. The book’s success in the Western Pennsylvania region was supported through extensive speaking engagements at artist and historical organizations, and a variety of other venues. In 2009, she has begun re-releasing the work nationally and is being featured via radio interviews on the East Coast in the Spring & Summer, as well as having an offshoot article published by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. In ’97, Lisa also had prose and poetry published in an anthology– “Unsilenced:Â The Spirit of Women.”
Lisa is a member of the Independent Scholars Association, and the Mid-Atlantic Book Publishers Association. Both Lisa’s books were spotlighted Dec. 2008 in an hour-long TV interview on the PA Cable Channel’s “PA Books” program, and she was awarded April ’09 the William Rimmel Award, from the Allegheny City Society, for her Northside community contributions.
Lisa’s main work since 1987 has been as violinist and conceptual artist who writes original music, often in collaboration with film, theatre, visual and movement artists. In 2008-9, she continued to play at a variety of venues ranging from the downtown Pittsburgh Cultural District to art openings to accompanying yoga workshops with original music on violin and mandolin. She’s been awarded grants for music from Meet The Composer, The Pittsburgh Foundation, The Heinz Endowments and one of the first PA Arts & Humanities Initiative grants for performances of a cross-disciplinary collaborative piece that she directed and produced. Entitled Presence, it incorporates glass art, slide projection, movement, her music, and collaboration with the Pittsburgh Jung Society and Duquesne University psychology department, and is about the search for authentic sense of self.
Major solo performance work of Lisa’s (composed for acoustic and electric violin and mandolin) premiered in ’98. Her music, at times driving, chordal, overdriven, dissonant, rhythmic and spacious, is oft intricately woven with multi-recorded tracks, including original text, and site-specific improvisation and movement in performance. Her set has been characterized as both a fast-driven new music set and a haunting performance work. Since 1987, Lisa has been a member of, or guest with, numerous Pgh. bands, live and in the studio. This includes the Feral Family, and (as founding member) Black Light Discipline (early ’90s) and Jack on Fire (2005). Her compositions for violin and cello were self-released in the winter of 1997. Lisa also has done extensive commercial studio work.
Lisa has accreditation by the PA Dept. of Education to conduct community history Professional Development (Act 48 college credit) courses for teachers. She tutors in most all subjects, including English as a Second Language, and has conducted Artist Residencies and Creative Workshops for Northside Urban Pathways Charter School and the Ellis School in Spring & Summer 2009, as well as Teacher Professional Development once again for the Beaver Valley Intermediate Unit.
Often engaged as a Speaker on her books, and creativity in general, she delivered the Keynote at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh’s Faculty Professional Development Spring ’08, discussing the ‘Creative Process & Education.’ As well, she performed original music and gave a major presentation on Creativity & Mental Illness at NAMI’s state mental health conference (Harrisburg, PA, 2003) and Women & Art at Youngstown (OH) State University’s Women Center (2003).
As a Teaching Artist, she has presented professional development workshops through BVIU, Midwestern PA IV IU & Shady Lane Resources, and has been involved with many Ready for Life/Heinz Endowments Early Literacy grants. She was a resident artist at Carnegie Mellon University’s Reggio Emilia daycare program, and has taught extensively independently and through various art centers–holding Music Creativity workshops that incorporate a cross-disciplinary arts approach. Lisa performed at First Night Pittsburgh for several years, and also there presented young instrumentalists that she was commissioned to work with on improvisation & composition.
In 2005, Lisa organized and coordinated artists for a Northside Artist Community Day at the Hazlett Theatre and had a re-commission for Folie a Deux, with stand-up bass, for live performance in early 2006 (Choreographer:Â Doug Bentz; Originally Commissioned by Point Park College ’99). In 2004, she curated a posthumous show of a Pittsburgh painter’s work, and in 2003, she scored a short film, Metamorphosis. As well, she began work on another film composition, music for a Point Park College dance performance, a music performance set for a visual/media installation, and guided a young improvisation student to compose for film. In 1991, Lisa organized a show of work by artists with mental illness, coordinating with area art therapists.
In 2001, Lisa scored “Arthur’s Family,” a short Pittsburgh independent film; also that year she premiered new material and performed live for a sculptural-movement work by Cheryl Cappezzuti & Laurie Tarter, Beneath The Light. Lisa accompanied at Pittsburgh’s Dance Alloy for over seven years, and she has played improvisational workshops with choreographers Mark Taylor and (through the Pittsburgh Dance Council) Jose Bustamante, David Parsons and HT Chen.
With her solo performance work, Lisa played in ’99 at the Andy Warhol Museum, the Mattress Factory, and the Philadelphia Fringe Festival (’99). Lisa’s music caught the attention of Anne LeBaron, internationally-recognized avant-garde harpist/composer, and the two collaborated twice in Pittsburgh in Sept. ’99–at the Millvale Industrial Theatre and as part of the University of Pittsburgh’s Inside the Edge program.
Lisa has played professionally with numerous regional symphonies since 1985, including the Youngstown, Westmoreland, Butler County and McKeesport Symphonies, as well as having played major avant-garde works with the Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall and Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. Her performance within the Pittsburgh independent art and music scene early on had mutual collaboration with cellist Erin Snyder, including music for national performance artist Animal X at Chatham College’s Eddy Theatre (’90). In ’94 Miles & Snyder jointly scored a stage adaptation (Laurel Highlands Regional Theatre) of the silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, garnering excellent reviews.
Now I See Myself/The Statue of Mirrors was a ’97 collaboration between Lisa and dancer Laura Brungard. Lisa composed the music for and was a physical presence in this performance piece, commissioned by the Pittsburgh Dance Council’s Choreographer’s Continuum and premiered at the Byham Theatre. The work was transformed with video and sculpture by Brett Day and performed again at Carnegie Mellon University’s Hewlett Gallery. A ’95 collaboration with Brungard had Lisa writing music for the performance film Bowl Dance, which has been spotlighted at a Boston video festival, an Argentine film festival and a Toronto Moving Pictures Festival.