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Local Music Mondays is a weekly segment produced by WUKY's DeBraun Thomas. Check here for archived episodes, extended interviews, and extras.

Local Music Monday: Cellist Cecilia Miller

Andrew Brinkhorst

This week DeBraun profiles Cecilia Miller, a Lexington cellist much in demand.

Cecilia Miller is a native of Charleston, West Virginia who moved to Lexington from Knoxville, Tennessee in 2015. Growing up she was surrounded by music and becoming a musician is something Miller says was pretty inevitable.

“My parents are both musicians, my mom is a cellist, in fifth grade we had a strings program start up in school and that’s when I decided I wanted to play, I wanted to play viola and my mom, who plays cello, was like ‘you can play cello and I’ll be your teacher, I’m not gonna pay for viola lessons’ and I stuck with it, I did orchestra, I did string camp, I did all of that stuff growing up and was around music constantly, so it was never really a question of like, ‘would I play music,’ it was just something we did.”

As she got older, music became an even bigger part of her life. While studying music at the University of Tennessee, Miller began to broaden her horizons. The Classroom was not the only place in Knoxville where she was learning. Miller says her experiences playing in Knoxville helped her grow to become an even better musician.

“I did a lot of Classical music in school, but I also started studying Jazz when I was at UT, I took a lot of the things I was learning in Jazz ensembles and Jazz lessons and I applied them to playing folk music and writing parts and improvising and that really helped me get through college, just making money playing gigs, like, as silly as it sounds, I actually played in a gelato shop every week for an entire year as part of a Jazz trio and I would always hire different Jazz majors to play with me, you know, it was a weekly gig and I was learning a lot at that.”

While she may be a multi-instrumentalist, the cello remains her first love. Miller has written and recorded music in a variety of styles that includes songs that have aired on the CW. Miller credits many of the opportunities she’s had to her instrument.

“I love collaborating with a lot of different people and getting to know different people and getting to know different people and playing in different settings, I’m kind of just very curious when it comes to music and I feel like this one instrument has really allowed me to, to do that, and I’ve played a lot with people who have never had cello in their groups or on their recordings and they’re really excited by it, so I’ve just felt so many opportunities with this instrument.”

Cecilia Miller performs with The Normads, Warren Byrom and the Fabled Canelands and the Lonetones. Miller will be performing with Warren Byrom at the Grand Reserve on April 8th.

More information about Miller and her projects can be found here.

DeBraun Thomas fell in love with radio at a young age but only had interest in working in radio after learning Funk musician Sly Stone got his start in radio. A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, Thomas moved to Lexington in 2009 to attend the University of Kentucky and pursue a career in radio. Thomas joined WRFL in 2009 and through the UK school of Journalism, Thomas had 2 features air on WUKY. In October of 2012, Thomas began interning at WUKY and produced the Unghosting of Medgar Evers. In August of 2013 Thomas became a staff member at WUKY and since that time, Thomas regularly produces the weekly segment Local Music Mondays which highlights local musicians in Lexington. Thomas hosts the Crunkadelic Funk Show which airs Saturday nights at 9pm and also produced a documentary on the 50th anniversary of the March on Frankfort. In addition to producing and hosting a radio show, Thomas also explores his other passion as a musician in Lexington.
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