Ernest Milmore Stires II
CORNWALL — Ernest Milmore Stires II, 82, died unexpectedly on Sunday, May 4, with his wife was at his side. He was born on Dec. 17, 1925, in Alexandria, Va., to a musical family.
His grandmother was Metropolitan Opera mezzosoprano Louise Homer and his grandfather, American art song composer Sydney Homer, and composer Samuel Barber was his cousin.
He graduated from Episcopal High School in Virginia, going on to study at Harvard and Dartmouth before graduating from Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. He was trained as a U.S. Navy pilot during World War II, going on to a business career as a television advertising executive, first for NBC in California, then CBS in Boston.
He began improvising jazz on piano at the age of four, but it wasn’t until 1962 that he left the business world to devote his time to music. He studied composition with composers Nicolas Slonimsky and Francis Judd Cooke. Since moving to Vermont in 1967, he has been an integral part of the Vermont music community.
He took administrative positions with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra in its early years to keep the state orchestra going, as well as with the famed Bennington Composers Conference. He was a founding member of the Consortium of Vermont Composers.
But he also volunteered his services to many community music organizations. He mentored young musicians, particularly pop and jazz, never charging for his time, teaching them the basics of theory and composition, as well as introducing them to the great composers.
Vermont musicians Trey Anastasio, formerly of the band Phish, and Jamie Masefield of the Jazz Mandolin Project are among his longtime students.
