For more than 30 years, two-time Juno Award- winning pianist/composer Andy Milne has demonstrated boundless versatility, collaborating with dancers, filmmakers, authors, visual artists, poets and musicians spanning multiple genres. He has released 13 recordings as a leader or co-leader, actively composing for orchestra, chamber ensembles, and scoring for film and television. A former student of Oscar Peterson and respected voice at the heart of New York’s creative jazz scene, Milne has recorded and toured throughout the world with Ravi Coltrane, Ralph Alessi, Carlos Ward, Carla Cook and Steve Coleman. He has collaborated with a range of artists including Joe Lovano, Andrew Cyrille, Sekou Sundiata, Avery Brooks, Bruce Cockburn, Fred Hersch, Ben Monder, Dianne Reeves, Jen Shyu, Tyshawn Sorey and Jamie Baum.
Aligning with Milne’s mid-career crescendo as a composer, he received the 2026 Commission of the Year award from Chamber Music America, honoring the piano quintet commissioned by the Banff International String Quartet Competition and premiered by Milne alongside the Isidore String Quartet. In 2026, the award-winning Elmer Iseler Singers premiered Milne’s first commissioned choral work, Try to Fly, set for chorus, piano and percussion. Milne’s score for True North, the latest film from Emmy-winning director Michele Stephenson, earned him a 2026 Canadian Screen Music Award nomination. The film premiered at TIFF2025 and received its broadcast debut on PBS’s Independent Lens in 2026. This follows the success of his score for Stephenson’s episode of the CBC Television documentary series Black Life – Untold Stories, which was also nominated for a Canadian Screen Music Award in 2024.
Several of Milne’s past projects merge senses and cultures. Strings & Serpents, which premiered at Lincoln Center in 2014, synthesized the melody, form, improvisational language and rhythm of Japanese and Western structures, blending musical and visual forms into a unified experience. In 2007, with tap dancer/choreographer Heather Cornell, he created Finding Synesthesia, which combined an inventive range of sounds and influences, weaving tap into the texture and sound of the orchestration. His 2001 collaboration with Bruce Cockburn blended jazz, funk and folk textures with social protest lyrics of 1960s folk and 1980s hip-hop.
Milne is both a Yamaha Piano and Steinberg Artist, and a sought-after educator. He is a tenured associate professor of music at The University of Michigan and the Gala Concert Artist for the 2026 Michigan Music Teachers Association Conference. He has received numerous awards and commissions, including the prestigious Civitella Fellowship in Italy.