Standing in the midst of towering organ pipes at his local university concert hall, a young Gary Miller had no idea that the huge instrument would take him around the world.

This really big wonderful pipe organ inspired me to go into pipe organs, said Miller, who will present a program of organ music from four centuries in a recital at 8 p.m. tonight in Shryock Auditorium.

A professor of music at Southeast Missouri State University, Miller’s love for music and fascination with the pipe organ were his emotional companions in Vietnam and ticket to perform in Germany.

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Miller grew up in a college town where his mother and father both music lovers made it a point to take him to musical events.

My parents were interested in music. We always had all sorts of music in the house, from Jazz to classical, gospel to big band, Miller said.

Miller started learning the piano when he was five years old. In fourth-grade he played the cello and switched to the oboe in eighth-grade. Miller said the organ didn’t come along until he was a sophomore in high school because you have to have physical size to play the organ.

Early influences were topped off when the university near Miller’s home purchased a pipe organ in the ’60s.

Miller received his earliest organ training at the University of Northern Iowa where he obtained his bachelor’s degree in Organ Performance.

After graduation, Miller was drafted into the Navy where he served from 1969 to 1973. On this tour of duty, he played a lot of combo jazz, some big band and rock at night and bass in the military band during the day.

After his stint in the military, Miller returned to Michigan. He applied to do some work in Germany as an exchange scholar and received a prestigious musical grant from the German government.

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Miller later moved to Colon, Germany, where he worked on preparing some music while taking courses in the history of the pipe organ.

I also made it a point to visit as many significant installations of old historic instruments as I could, he said. The best part of my stay in Germany was getting to see instruments from the 1700s, eating German food and making a lot of international friends.

It was so good, I applied and stayed a second year.

Now Miller teaches primarily underclassmen at Southeast Missouri State University. According to his student evaluations, he is known as being hard yet fair.

I love my job and my students very much, he said. My goal is to make my class as interesting as I can.

Miller’s most memorable performance was in 1990 when he represented SEMO in Holland.

I played on a very wonderful pipe organ which dated back to 1663. The church itself was built in the 1200s, he said.

Although Miller has played in many different places for many years, he admits he still gets nervous in front of audiences.

Anybody who is concerned about communicating effectively gets a little nervous, he said. But usually when you play the first couple of notes, you get into the swing of things, and you know that it’s going to be a great performance. And you know that you would not rather be doing anything else.

Miller said it is always fun to think that he is communicating effectively and to know that what he is doing is effecting a lot of different people in a lot of ways.

Different people are listening to different things. I think that is an exciting notion to start off with, Miller said.

Miller’s recital features the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, Matthias Meckmann, Jean-Adam Guilain, Cesar Franck, Louis Verne and Jean Langlais.

Miller also never likes to feel that he is playing a piece of music that he does not have a handle on. And he said that there will never be an instance where he is playing pieces that he does not like.

Like the pieces I’m bring to Carbondale, he said, I love every single note of the recital.

Factoid:Event:Organ Recital with Gary Miller