Albany Symphony Orchestra Music Director David Alan Miller leads the Dogs of Desire during the Albany Symphony’s 2023 American Music Festival. Photo by Gary Gold.
In Sunday’s (5/2) Times Union (Albany, NY), Katherine Kiessling writes, “David Alan Miller knew he struck gold when his late-mom declared she hated the name ‘Dogs of Desire.’ He was still in Los Angeles, rattling off a list of … names for his imagined ‘hard-hitting, rock-inspired’ chamber orchestra…. Miller said, ‘I wanted to have no classical connotations. I wanted to get as far away from having it linked to orchestras. I wanted something that was completely away from that, but like a rock and roll band.’ The Dogs, as the group is affectionately called by Miller, musicians, composers and audiences alike, were unleashed in 1994, two years after Miller began his tenure as Albany Symphony’s music director and conductor. On June 7, Dogs of Desire will celebrate its 30th anniversary with a concert of five world premieres and new arrangements loosely inspired by the Erie Canal. Dogs of Desire was born out of Miller’s confusion over the ‘dramatic divide’ between commercial and classical arts … The Dogs [initially] featured 16 musicians, including keyboards, a drummer and vocalist to tap into elements of pop music. The size allows Miller and the Dogs to take bigger risks with projects than with the full 75-piece … Miller estimates Dogs of Desire has premiered over 200 works since its inception.”
