Daron Hagen
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Daron Aric Hagen (born November 4, 1961, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) is an American composer of contemporary classical music and opera.
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[edit] Life
[edit] Early life and education
The youngest of the three sons of Gwen Hagen (a visual artist, writer and advertising executive who studied with Mari Sandoz) 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, where his teachers included Catherine Comet (conducting), Les Thimmig and Homer Lambrecht (composition), 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 at Juilliard, studying first for two years with Diamond, then for a semester each with Joseph Schwantner and Bernard Rands. After graduating, Hagen summered as a Tanglewood composition fellow before briefly living abroad, first at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France, and then at the Rockefeller Foundation's Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio, Italy, where he has twice been a guest. 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.
[edit] Career
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; the University of Wisconsin Madison School of Music commissioned Concerto for Brass Quintet for its 100th anniversary in 1995; the Curtis Institute commissioned Much Ado for its 75th anniversary in 2000. Hagen's numerous commissions from major orchestras and performers between 1981 and 2007 included orchestral works, three symphonies, seven concertos (for Gary Graffman, Jaime Laredo, Sharon Robinson, Jeffrey Khaner 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, four 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).
Hagen is currently at work on a new opera entitled Amelia for the Seattle Opera, a violin concerto for Michael Ludwig and the Buffalo Philharmonic, and a fourth (choral) symphony for the Albany Symphony Orchestra. Recordings of Hagen works may be found on the Albany Records, Arabesque, Arsis, Sierra, TNC, Mark, and CRI labels, among others. From 1982 to 1990, his music was published exclusively by EC Schirmer in Boston; from 1990 to 2006, Carl Fischer Music in New York served as his exclusive publisher. He is now self-published, under the imprint Burning Sled. Also active as a collaborative pianist, conductor, and stage director, Hagen has lived in New York City since 1984.
[edit] Teaching
A passionate educator, eloquent ambassador of the arts, and advocate of young composers, he served in 2007 as composer in residence at the Music Conservatory of the Chicago College of Performing Arts; he has served as the Franz Lehár Composer in Residence at the University of Pittsburgh (2007), 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). From 2004-2007 Hagen served as President of the Lotte Lehmann Foundation in New York City, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging the performance and creation of art song. He was named a Lifetime Member of the Corporation of Yaddo in 2006.
[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] References
- 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.
- Catherine Parsonage. "Hagen's Bandanna and the Accesibility of Opera," Winds Music Magazine (May 2006), 12-16.
- Russell Platt. "Artful Simplicity: the Art Songs of Daron Hagen," NATS Journal of Singing 55, no. 1 (September/October 1998): 3-11.
- 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.
- James Reel. "A Conversation With Composer Daron Hagen," Fanfare Magazine (September/October 1999): 128-133.
- James Reel. "Daron Hagen," Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy. (Accessed 15 January 2007). Grove Online
- Ned Rorem. "Learning With Daron," Opera News (April 10, 1993): 29-30.
[edit] External links
- Official Daron Hagen Website
- The Lotte Lehmann Foundation
- Collected reviews of Hagen works
- E.C. Schirmer Publishing, Boston, Massachusetts — for works composed prior to 1990.
- Carl Fischer LLC, New York, New York — for works composed 1990-2006.
- Burning Sled Music, New York, New York — for works composed after 2006.
- Daron Hagen at allmusic
