Miles is a Kansas City native currently attending the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. He channeled Scriabin's pianistic piano powers of the 8th Sonata and the massive Carnaval by Robert Schumann. He claims Super Mario Galaxy as an influence for his original composition "A Night at the Observatory". These are his own words:
A Night at the Observatory presents a colorful, hypnotic, and dramatic narrative of an astronomer observing a night sky. Rapidly shifting harmonic colors, dazzling textures, and a peaceful melody evoke the hidden treasures of the night sky concealed behind the windy and cloudy troposphere. After a thunderous build up and a violently swirling storm, the clouds disperse, and the beautiful starry night presents itself again, utilizing transformations of the melodies from the opening section and the storm section. The astronomer sees beautiful planets, colorful galaxies, and a stunning meteor shower that lights up the radiant night sky. After this gorgeous display of warm colors and spectacular imagery, clouds begin to peacefully congregate again and conceal the night sky from the astronomer. The piece is full of rich harmonies, complex counterpoint, melodic transformation, various contrasting textures, and it features a special use of the sostenuto pedal, the middle pedal of the piano. By silently depressing and holding the bottom two octaves of the keyboard, slowly releasing the right pedal to naturally let the sustained frequencies decay, and then pressing the sostenuto pedal to keep the dampers of the bottom two octaves lifted, the frequencies and overtones of all the notes above the depressed range are now under the control of the pianist. Through subtle differences in articulation, careful touches of the right damper pedal, and plenty of time for the chords to atmospherically resonate, the pianist can effectively control the chords’ resonances and colors after the keys have been pushed.
https://pianomiles.com/