The pNeXT Ensemble

Ari Hunter Scott is a cellist, composer, and improviser based out of the Chicago area. With performing degrees from Illinois Wesleyan and DePaul University, Ari has been performing around the midwest for several years, both as a soloist, and as an orchestral and chamber musician. Her repertoire is wide, often performing Debussy, Poulenc, Prokofiev, and Francaix, together with her own music and that of many emerging composers. She often has worked across genres, with jazz musicians, pop artists, and many others. As a composer, she has written several chamber and solo works, as well as several soundtracks, both featuring acoustic and digital music. She often performs concerts, weddings, and other events.

Composer, pianist, and organist Michael Gustav Miller (b.1968) began studying piano in 1973 with Sandra Renegar in Ida Grove, Iowa, including theory, composition, and wind instruments. At 13 he started organ lessons with Phyllis Schultz. He continued studying piano with Arne Sorensen in Sioux City, Iowa.
Early concerto appearances included Beethoven second in Sioux City, and Saint-Saëns second in Valparaiso, Indiana, as the first winner of the Lutheran Summer Music Program national academy’s concerto competitions, in 1983. He served as organist for several churches in his hometown during middle and high school, and for churches in Iowa City while in college.
Michael attended the University of Iowa in Iowa City as one of only ten full scholarship academic Presidential Scholars, studying piano with noted pedagogues John Simms and Kenneth Amada, oboe with James Lakin, and composition with Richard Hervig and William Hibbard, graduating Summa Cum Laude in 1988 with degrees in piano and oboe. At the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Michael studied with many extraordinary artists, including members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Further appearances with orchestra included works of Bach and Cage in Boston. Michael has been heard live on WGBH radio in Boston playing works of Rameau, Harbison, and Etler. He can be heard as soloist with orchestra on John Cage’s unusual Ryoanji on a CD issued by Mode Records. John Cage described Michael’s playing as “extraordinarily beautiful”. Michael received the Master of Music degree from New England Conservatory in 1991.
Michael returned to the University of Iowa for further graduate work in music composition, collaborating with fellow artists while on staff of the University’s Dance and Music Departments. After working with various churches, orchestras, theatre, and ballet companies in the Midwest and New England, he settled in Chicago in 2001 to work full-time as an independent artist as a teacher, composer, and performer. He has been twice nominated for a Jeff Award for theatre music direction in Chicago. Michael taught piano lessons for many years at Access Contemporary Music in Ravenswood (Chicago). Currently he serves as the Organist and Music Director of Unity Lutheran Church in Edgewater (Chicago), and since 2016 as founder of Concerts at Unity concert series.
Recent compositions include Elegy Variations for flute, for Trevor Watkin; Enambered, for the Chicago Bass Ensemble; Insomnia for double bass, for Doug Johnson; Byzantine Fantasy, for English horn and harp, for St Simon's Episcopal Church (Arlington Heights); Heart of Tungsten, for cello and piano, for Alexa Muhly; Spinning on the Beach, for clarinet and piano, for John De La Paz and Unity Lutheran Church; and Caduceus Fantasy, for violin and cello, for the International Museum of Surgical Science.
“I am a modern classical music composer and pianist. I do a lot of performing of classical music, mostly in Chicago, on piano and organ in concerts and in church services. My repertoire includes Ancient Music, Baroque, Classical, and Modern. My performances attempt to be high quality, poetic, and illuminating. Unique in my repertoire are my original musical compositions. I pursue my composition career with equal vigor to my performance career. Indeed, they are often one and the same, in that I often program my own musical compositions as a part of my classical music performances. I am trying to put my original artworks, my compositions, into a general historical repertory context. I write my music to be considered as the “next step” in the living history of classical music and its repertoire. My music is intended to be a bridge between tonal and atonal music. Historically, tonal and atonal music have sometimes been seen as opposing forces, but, by blending these approaches, I hope to break down barriers and create music that appeals to a wider audience. This can help to make modern "classical" music more accessible. My primary performance venue is at Unity Lutheran Church in Edgewater, Chicago, where they have hosted my performances for the past 10 years. I organize a concert series “Concerts at Unity” that is attended by the church community and also neighbors and friends from the larger community. I perform as a soloist, and also with my group “The pNeXT Ensemble.”