Daron Hagen
Biography
Daron Hagen (b. 1961, Milwaukee, Misc.) is an American composer, writer, and filmmaker.
Commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, Seattle Opera, and The National Symphony Orchestra, among many others, his catalogue includes eleven operas, five symphonies (for the orchestras of Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Oakland, Albany, and Phoenix), twelve concertos, dozens of instrumental works, film scores, and over 300 art songs and cycles.
For his auteur filmmaking debut, the pathbreaking Operafilm Orson Rehearsed, Hagen wrote the libretto/screenplay and score (both acoustic and electro-acoustic), stage (and film) directed, shot the film for the movies-within-the-film and staged opera, edited the film, and mixed the soundtrack.
His memoir, Duet With the Past, was published in 2019. As a stage director, he has mounted new productions of his own works for the Kentucky Opera, Skylight Music Theater, and the Buffalo Philharmonic, among others. As a conductor he has led world premiere recordings of several of his operas; he has appeared on three discs as a collaborative pianist for his art songs.
The recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Academy Award in 2014 for “the artist who has achieved his singular voice,” he has been a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow at Bellagio twice, received the Guggenheim Fellowship, Kennedy Center Friedheim Prize, ASCAP Foundation Rudolf Nissim Prize, Barlow Endowment Prize, and Columbia University Bearns Prize. Hagen is a Lifetime Member of the Corporation of Yaddo, has served as president of the Lotte Lehmann Foundation, as a trustee of the Douglas Moore Fund for American Music, and as artistic director and head of faculty of the Seasons Music Festival Academy in Washington. Co-chair of the Wintergreen Music Festival’s Composer’s Retreat, he has taught at Bard College, the Curtis Institute of Music, and the Princeton Atelier. He is currently a member of the artist faculty of the Chicago College of Performing Arts.
Mr. Hagen trained at UW-Madison, Curtis, and at the Juilliard School.
Works for Winds
- Agincourt Fanfare (2007)
- Bandanna (1998)
- Bandanna Overture (1999)
- The Banner of My Purpose(2006)
- Concerto for Flugelhorn (1994)
- Forward! (1998)
- The Heart of a Stranger (1999)
- Light Fantastic (2004)
- Night Again (1997)
- Prelude and Prayer (from Bandanna) (1999)
- Sennets, Cortage, and Tuckets (1989)
- Suddenly (1999)
- Wedding Dances (orch. Spede) (1999)
Resources
- Daron Hagen website
- Wallace, Jacob. "Bandanna Overture." In Teaching Music through Performance in Band. Volume 10, Compiled and edited by Richard Miles, 705-714. Chicago: GIA Publications, 2015.