Cameron Millar

Bio: Cameron Millar, Trumpet and Flugelhorn.

Cameron was born in Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland, UK, in the same hospital as the late Scottish actor Sean Connery (famous for his depictions of Ian Fleming’s MI6 agent 007 James Bond). Despite being born in Edinburgh however he was raised in a small village called Bridge of Weir, located just to the west of Glasgow. He learned to play the descant recorder at age 6 while attending Bridge of Weir Primary School. Two years after that he took piano lessons, and a further two years later, still at the same school, he was introduced to the Bb orchestral trumpet. He started taking regular lessons and became a member of the school band. He later attended Park Mains High School in Erskine, Scotland, and continued his trumpet lessons there, under the tutelage of Brian Duguid. He also became a member of the Park Mains High School Orchestra, Concert Band, Brass Chamber Group, Jazz Band, and Stage Band (playing with an adult troupe of Gilbert & Sullivan actors). With these he was involved in many performances in the local area and beyond, as far afield as north-west Germany. The concert band also recorded two long-playing records, many of which were sold.

As an adult, during and following a period in the British Army (Corps of Royal Engineers), he played the Bb cornet with the Johnstone Silver Band in the West of Scotland, and the Bb trumpet with another Gilbert & Sullivan troupe stage band in the north of England. He also played with the University of Glasgow while a student with both the Faculties of Science, and Medicine. Following graduation, he completed three postdoctoral fellowships in the USA, Canada, and back at Glasgow, before becoming an Assistant Professor with a medical college in London, England. In 2001 he relocated to Fort Worth, Texas, to join Alcon Research, a large eye care device and pharmaceutical company, as a company scientist. He is also a founder member of the Alcon Jazz Ensemble (now Maxwell Hall Jazz Band), which he joined in 2008.

After leaving Alcon in 2013, he joined Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine (TCOM) and the North Texas Eye Research Institute (NTERI) as an Assistant Professor, located on the campus of the University of North Texas Health Science Center, in Fort Worth. Currently he teaches medical and graduate students, and conducts research into various blinding eye diseases, most notably glaucoma.

In addition to being a member of the Maxwell Hall Jazz Band, he also joined the East Fort Worth Community Jazz Band in 2022.

In addition to the trumpet, cornet, and flugelhorn, he also plays the Scottish Highland Bagpipe, as well as the Scottish Border Bagpipe, and the Scottish Small Pipes. Over the years he has been a member of six pipe bands, two of which competed at World-class level.

In his spare time Cameron enjoys, in aside to music, building and operating model railroads and publishing them in model railroad magazines. He also enjoys building and operating model ships. For many years he was a student of the Japanese martial art of Ju Jitsu. He is also an avid cyclist and occasional hiker and SCUBA diver. He has written and published two novels. He also loves to travel and has to date visited 30 countries around the world, and has lived and worked in the United Kingdom (Scotland and England), Germany, Canada, and the United States.

His birthday is August 20.