CO-FOUNDER, CONDUCTOR, GOOD MEMORIES ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Jonathan Miller

Over a 40-year career combining the roles of choral director and nonprofit arts visionary, Jon has conducted singers at all skill levels from beginners to professionals. He began his life in choral music during ten years in the Chicago Children’s Choir (now Uniting Voices Chicago) and began singing professionally as a bass at age 17. Following graduate studies in Renaissance musicology, in 1993 he founded the virtuoso ensemble Chicago a cappella and served as its artistic director for 27 years. While leading the group in nine commercial recordings and more than 300 live concerts, in 2009 he received Chorus America’s Louis Botto Award for Innovative Action and Entrepreneurial Zeal. He also served in the private sector for two software startups and then for Musicnotes.com. In 2016, Jon, along with his wife, Sandy Siegel Miller, co-founded Sounds Good Choir, replicating an existing model to bring non-auditioned, professionally led choirs for older adults to the Chicago area. 

Sounds Good Choir is now the nation’s second-largest choral organization for older adults, serving more than 700 singers annually. As the nonprofit’s founding artistic director, Jon led as many as five Sounds Good choirs. In 2018 he and Sandy created Good Memories, a choral program for people with early-stage dementia and their care partners. In the summer of 2026, as the Good Memories Choirs begin a multi-year expansion, Jon becomes the first Good Memories Artistic Director, managing the conducting team and co-leading program growth.

He and Sandy are regular speakers on the intersections of music, older adults, well-being and memory. Jon has served the wider field as a board member of Chorus America (2009-2014) and has been a grants panelist for both the Illinois Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. As a composer, he has written or arranged more than 200 works for choir. A noted expert on Jewish choral music, Jon serves as high-holiday cantor at Congregation Rodfei Zedek in Hyde Park, and he serves on the Musical Shabbat davening team at West Suburban Temple Har Zion in River Forest. As a worship musician, he also volunteers in the choir at Church of the Holy Nativity (Episcopal) in Clarendon Hills, where he is active in the PADS ministry.