Daron Hagen

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Daron Aric Hagen
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Daron Aric Hagen

Daron Aric Hagen (born November 4, 1961, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) is an American composer of contemporary classical music and opera. He studied composition at the Juilliard School, the Curtis Institute of Music, and privately with Leonard Bernstein.

Contents

[edit] Life

The youngest of the three sons of Gwen Hagen (an artist and advertising executive) and Earl Hagen (an attorney), Hagen began composing prolifically in 1974, when his older brother gave him a recording and score of Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd. Two years later, at the age of fifteen, he conducted the premiere of his first orchestral work, a recording and score of which came to the attention of Leonard Bernstein, who enthusiastically urged Hagen to attend Juilliard to study with David Diamond. He took composition, piano, and conducting lessons at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music while attending Brookfield Central High School. After two years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, followed by three years of study with Ned Rorem at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Hagen moved to New York City in 1984 to complete his formal education as a student of Diamond’s at Juilliard. After graduating, Hagen lived abroad briefly, first at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France, and then at the Rockefeller Foundation's Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio, Italy. When he returned to the United States, Hagen studied privately with Bernstein, whose guidance during the composition of Hagen's Shining Brow (1992) — the opera that launched Hagen's career internationally — prompted him to dedicate the score to Bernstein’s memory.

His first composition to attract wide attention was Prayer for Peace, premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1981. The New York Philharmonic commissioned Philharmonia for its 150th anniversary in 1990. Hagen's numerous commissions from major orchestras and performers between 1981 and 2005 included orchestral works, three symphonies, seven concertos (for Gary Graffman and Sara Sant'Ambrogio, among others), several massive works for chorus and orchestra, two dozen choral works (including one for the Kings Singers), ballet scores, concert overtures, showpieces, two brass quintets, two piano trios, a string quartet, an oboe quintet, a duo for violin and cello, solo works for piano, organ, violin, viola, and cello, and seventeen published cycles of art songs. In 1990 Hagen began a creative collaboration with the Irish poet Paul Muldoon that resulted in four major operas: Shining Brow (1992), Vera of Las Vegas (1996), Bandanna (1998), and The Antient Concert (2005).

In 2004 Hagen was named President of the Lotte Lehmann Foundation in New York City, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging the performance and creation of art song. A passionate educator, eloquent ambassador of the arts, and advocate of young composers, he served twice as Composer in Residence for the Princeton University Atelier (1998, 2005); as Artist in Residence at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (2000-2002); Sigma-Chi-William P. Huffman Composer in Residence at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio (1999-2000); Artist in Residence at Baylor University, Waco, Texas (1998-1999); on the musical studies faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music (1996-1998); as an Associate Professor at Bard College (1988-1997); as a Visiting Professor at the City College of New York (1997, 1993-1994); and as a Lecturer in Music at New York University (1988-1990). Hagen is a Lifetime Member of the Corporation of Yaddo.

Also active as a collaborative pianist and conductor, Hagen has lived in New York City since 1984. He is currently at work on a new opera for the Seattle Opera.

[edit] Reception

Hagen's music has received the Columbia University Bearns Prize, the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Barlow Foundation commission and prize, multiple prizes from the Broadcast Music Incorporated and ASCAP Foundations including the ASCAP-Nissim Prize for Orchestral Music, Opera America's Next Stage Award and a production grant from the Readers Digest Opera for a New America Project (1997), a production grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (2005), and the Kennedy Center Friedheim Prize for orchestral music. Performances by hundreds of orchestras and soloists in the United States, as well as an increasing number of revivals internationally of his operas have cemented Hagen's status as one of America's most respected and sought-after composers.

[edit] Selected list of works

[edit] Works for and with orchestra

  • Prayer for Peace for string orchestra (1981)
  • Stanzas for cello and chamber orchestra (1982)
  • Andersonville Overture (1982)
  • Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1983)
  • Symphony No. 1 (1985)
  • Grand Line: a Tribute to Leonard Bernstein (1986)
  • Heliotrope (1990)
  • Symphony No. 2 (1990)
  • Philharmonia (1991)
  • Fire Music (1992)
  • Joyful Music for chorus and orchestra (1994)
  • Concerto for Horn, with Winds and Strings (1994)
  • Built Up Dark for strings, winds and brass (1996)
  • Taliesin: Choruses from Shining Brow for chorus and orchestra (1996)
  • Concerto for Cello and Orchestra (1996)
  • Stewards of Your Bounty for chorus and orchestra (1996)
  • Postcards from America (1997)
  • Symphony No. 3 (1998)
  • Suddenly (2000)
  • Much Ado (2000)
  • Concerto for Oboe and String Orchestra (2001)
  • Angels for string orchestra (2001)
  • Advance (2001)
  • Seven Last Words for Piano LH and orchestra (2002)
  • Piano Concerto (2002)
  • Chamber Symphony (2003)
  • Susurrus (2003)
  • Romeo and Juliet for flute, cello and orchestra (2004)
  • Gesture Drawings for orchestra (2005)

[edit] Operas and Cantatas

  • A Walt Whitman Requiem for chorus and string orchestra (1984)
  • Shining Brow (1991)
  • Vera of Las Vegas (1997)
  • Songs of Madness and Sorrow (1997)
  • Bandanna, the opera (1998)
  • Light Fantastic (2000)
  • Broken Pieces (2003)
  • The Antient Concert (2005)

[edit] Song Cycles

  • Echo's Songs (1982)
  • Three Silent Things for soprano and piano quartet (1984)
  • Love Songs (1986)
  • Rapture and Regret for soprano, cello and piano (1987)
  • Muldoon Songs (1990)
  • Dear Youth for soprano, flute and piano (1991)
  • Lost in Translation for voice, oboe, cello and harpsichord (1993)
  • Merrill Songs (1996)
  • Love Scene from Romeo and Juliet for soprano, baritone, flute, violin and piano (1996)
  • The Heart of the Stranger (2000)
  • Love in a Life (2000)
  • Phantoms of Myself (2000)
  • Figments (2001)
  • Larkin Songs (2001)
  • Letting Go (2003)
  • Alive in a Moment for voice and string quartet (2003)
  • Sappho Songs for two female voices and cello (2004)

[edit] Chamber Works

  • Divertimento for viola, harp, and vibraphone (1984)
  • Suite for Solo Violin (1984)
  • Trio Concertante: Piano Trio No. 1 (1984)
  • Occasional Notes for organ (1985)
  • String Quartet No. 1 (1985)
  • Suite for Solo Cello (1985)
  • Sonata No. 1 for Flute and Piano (1985)
  • Suite for Solo Viola (1986)
  • J'entends: Piano Trio No. 2 (1986)
  • Higher, Louder, Faster! for solo cello (1987)
  • The Presence Absence Makes, for flute and string quartet (1988)
  • Harp Trio (1989)
  • Jot! for clarinet, marimba, and piano (1989)
  • Everything Must Go! for brass quintet (1993)
  • Music from Shining Brow for brass quintet (1994)
  • Concerto for Brass Quintet (1995)
  • An Overture to Vera for fourteen instruments (1996)
  • Duo for Violin and Cello (1997)
  • Qualities of Light for piano (1999)
  • Serenade for ten instruments (2000)
  • Quintet for Oboe and Strings (2001)
  • Nocturne for piano and strings (2001)
  • Snapshot for string quartet (2002)
  • Variant for string quartet (2002)
  • Piano Variations (2002)
  • Chamber Symphony for thirteen instruments (2003)
  • Sonata No. 2 for Flute and Piano (2003)

[edit] Choral Works

  • Vägen (1985)
  • The Voice Within (1985)
  • Little Prayers (1989)
  • The Waking Father (1995)
  • The Elephant's Child (1995)
  • Litany of Reconciliation (1996)
  • Gandhi's Children (1997)
  • Hope (1997)
  • Silent Night, eight movements for chorus, cello and percussion (1998)
  • We're All Here for chorus and chamber ensemble(2002)
  • I Had Rather (2004)
  • Vertue (2005)
  • Flight Music for treble chorus and string quartet (2005)
  • O, For Such a Dream for soprano solo, mixed chorus, and piano (2006)

[edit] Band and Wind Ensemble

  • Sennets, Cortege, and Tuckets (1990)
  • Concerto for Flügelhoprn and Wind Ensemble (1994)
  • Concerto for Cello and Wind Orchestra (1998)
  • Night, Again (1998)
  • Forward! for brass and percussion (1999)
  • Bandanna Overture (1999)
  • Wedding Dances from Bandanna (2000)
  • Prelude and Prayer from Bandanna (2000)
  • The Banner of My Purpose for baritone and wind ensemble (2006)

[edit] Further reading

  • "Hagen, Daron" Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy. Accessed 11 November 2005: Grove Online
  • Carol Kimball, "Daron Hagen," in Song: A Guide to Style and Literature (Seattle:Pst Inc., 1996), 298-300.
  • Paul Kreider 1999. Art songs of Daron Hagen: lyrical dramaticism and simplicity with an interpretive guide to rittenhouse songs and resuming green. DMA diss., University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona.
  • Edwin Powell 2002. Bandanna, an opera by Daron Aric Hagen with libretto by Paul Muldoon commissioned by the College Band Directors National Association: the origins of an artwork with a glimpse at its musical character development. DMA diss., Baylor University, Waco, Texas.
  • Jane McCalla Redding 2002. An introduction to American song composer Daron Aric Hagen (b. 1961) and his miniature folk opera: dear youth. DMA diss., Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
  • Ned Rorem "Learning With Daron," Opera News (April 10, 1993): 29-30.

[edit] External links

[edit] Listening

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