"People should love new orchestra music! If they don't...maybe they haven't heard new music that touches their hearts and connects to their lives? I like things like melody, rhythm, and beautiful harmonies. And, after conducting the great masterworks for 25 years, as a writer I seek to express what I feel in my own way, a blend of the great beauty of tonal diatonic language, an exploration of new musical freedoms fought for by our recent predecessors and contemporaries, and thinking of new ways to use the incredible instrument on the stage...the orchestra. Through this timeless medium, I invite listeners and performers to share the journey with experiences beyond our everyday lives...like unbridled power, tender love, stunning majesty, resolution of pain, and joyful exuberance."
Amy Riebs Mills has brought new music, including her own, to American and international audiences on four continents. The La Crosse Tribune calls her “Christmas Angels & Kings” “lovely and imaginative.” In 2009 she took a leap of faith and left her conducting position of 14 years to concentrate full time on her new passion, composition.
“Ha Shamayim” was premiered by the state orchestra in Aguascalientes, Mexico in July 2010. The five photographs taken by the Hubble Space Telescope which inspired the piece were projected over the orchestra during the performance which was received with greatest enthusiasm by the concert, radio, and television audiences.
She has just completed “Trumpet Journey One,” for Solo Trumpet and String Orchestra, written for co-principal trumpet of the Milwaukee Symphony, Dennis Najoom.
“Centennial Fanfare” was written to open summer pops concerts for her orchestra in La Crosse and has been performed eight times.
Mills served for 14 seasons as Music Director and Conductor of the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra in Wisconsin. Called “a fireball of excitement and enthusiasm” by the La Crosse Tribune, the orchestra flourished under her artistic leadership with quadrupling of subscribers. Mills was also the founder and Music Director of the National Women’s Symphony in Washington, D.C., which featured the music of women composers. Although she was not yet actively composing, Mills founded the NWS to provide opportunities for living women composers to have their music played, and to perform historical works by women.
As a guest conductor she made her Mexican debut in Acapulco in 2009 conducting the Orquesta Filarmonica de Acapulco and she returned to Mexico in 2010 to conduct the Orquesta Sinfonica de Aguascalientes. She made her Brazilian debut in Rio de Janeiro in 2006 conducting the Rio de Janeiro Philharmonic Orchestra, her Polish debut in 2003 conducting the Szczecin Symphony, and her Russian debut in 1997 conducting the Dubna Symphony Orchestra. She has conducted the Houston (TX) Symphony, the Acadianna (LA) Symphony, the Springfield (MO) Symphony, the Traverse (MI) Symphony, the Winona (MN) Symphony, the Pacific University (OR) Honors Orchestra, New York City’s Centre Symphony, and the Arlington (VA) Symphony. She has also served as cover conductor for the National Symphony Orchestra (DC).
Prior to her appointment in La Crosse, Ms. Mills was the youngest Music Director of the U.S Air Force Symphony Orchestra, Chorus and Band. She was the first woman to serve as Music Director of the U.S. Air Force Singing Sergeants, conducting the 27-member full-time professional chorus in over 350 concerts around the country.
Mills holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The Catholic University of America, and Master of Music and Bachelor of Music Education degrees from Northwestern University, where she was the School of Music’s 1995 commencement speaker. In addition to composing and conducting, she is a pianist and clarinetist.