Carl Fischer Music Publishing

Compositions by Daron Hagen have been commissioned by many of America's foremost musical institutions, including Philharmonia, commissioned for the 150th anniversary of the New York Philharmonic; Much Ado, commissioned for the 75th anniversary of the Curtis Institute of Music; Angels, commissioned for the 100th anniversary of the artist retreat Yaddo and premiered by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra; Concerto for Brass Quintet, commissioned for the 100th anniversary of the University of Wisconsin; Heliotrope, commissioned for the 75th anniversary of ASCAP and premiered by the Brooklyn Philharmonic; The Waking Father, commissioned by the Kings Singers; Seven Last Words, a Concerto for Piano Left Hand and Orchestra commissioned for Gary Graffman to introduce with the New Mexico Symphony and Buffalo Philharmonic; Pieta, a Double Concerto commissioned for Jaime Laredo & Sharon Robinson to introduce with the Buffalo Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony and Puerto Rico Symphony.

Hagen's numerous song cycles and operatic works are especially beloved by singers and critics, who write that he is "born to write operas," (Chicago Tribune) and is possessed of "a sophisticated, wide-ranging musical mind" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinal). "No other American composer in his generation sets English so persuasively, so easily, or with such immediate feeling" (NATS Journal of Singing). Hagen "sustains the idea of non-minimalist tonality as a still-viable medium" (Village Voice). His music is variously described as "utterly brilliant" (New York Times) and "of considerable artistic achievement and of uncompromising seriousness" (Times of London). He has been described as "an inspired melodist" (Fanfare) and the creator of "dangerously beautiful melodies" (New York Post). "Daron is music." (Opera News).

Mr. Hagen is one of the more honored young American composers. The work has received the Bearns Prize (from Columbia University), the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Barlow Foundation grant and prize, multiple prizes from the BMI and ASCAP Foundations including the ASCAP-Nissim Prize for Orchestral Music, Opera America's "Next Stage" Award, a production grant from the Readers Digest Opera for a New America Project, the Kennedy Center Friedheim Prize for orchestral music, and a Rockefeller Foundation Grant. Hagen has served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and is a Member of the Corporation of Yaddo, where he has composed many of his works.

Recordings of the music of Daron Hagen are available on CRI, Albany, Klavier, Cambria, Sierra Classical, Bleecker Street Media and Sanctus. In the mid 1990's Daron Hagen began a non-exclusive relationship with the Arsis label that has so far yielded nine CD's devoted to his song cycles, choral works, concerti and wind ensemble works, most composer-supervised -- some are composer-conducted or performed as well. His most recent release is on CRI - the premiere full cast recording of his opera Vera of Las Vegas.

A passionate mentor of and advocate for young composers, Hagen served on the faculty of Toni Morrison's atelier at Princeton University in 1999. From 1996 to 1998 Hagen served on the faculty of the Curtis Institute. From 1988-1997 he taught composition as a professor at Bard College. During this period Hagen also served several semesters on the faculties of New York University and the City College of New York. Hagen was composer-in-residence for the Long Beach (Ca) Symphony Orchestra from 1991-1992 and served as impresario and performer for over forty concerts in Philadelphia and New York City of works by his contemporaries from 1983-1993 as Founding Director of the Perpetuum Mobile Concert Series. Married to composer Gilda Lyons, he has lived in New York City since 1984.

Daron Hagen was born in Milwaukee on November 4, 1961. He began the study of piano, music theory, conducting and composition at the age of fourteen at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. He continued his studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School, working with teachers as diverse as Ned Rorem, Joseph Schwantner, David Diamond and Witold Lutoslawski. Hagen received international popular and critical acclaim for his first opera, Shining Brow, about the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, premiered by the Madison Opera in 1992. Mr. Hagen's music is published by Carl Fischer, and by E.C. Schirmer.

This biography can be reproduced free of charge in concert programs with the following credit: Reprinted by kind permission of Carl Fischer.