ESSAYS

Ethical Artistry (4 part series)
Part I Projects, Finding the Balance, & Artistic Guilt
Part II Falling Short: Logistics, Programming, and Complex Moral Decisions
Part III Changing Our Approach to Avoid the Easy Way Out
Part IV Does Any of This Really Matter?  If So, What Steps Can I take?

Performers / Composers

Resonance

After a youth filled with drum set, orchestral percussion, and songwriting, composer Daniel Temkin has become known for crafting works filled with rich detail and visceral beauty.

Daniel has been Composer-in-Residence with Music from Angel Fire (New Mexico), Chamber Music Northwest (Portland), Chamber Music by the Bay (San Francisco), and the Intimacy of Creativity Festival (Hong Kong).  He has received grants and fellowships from New Music USA, the American Composers Forum, Amphion Foundation, the Aaron Copland Fund, the Alice M. Ditson Fund, Earshot, the Theodore Presser Foundation, and others, as well as numerous awards, including the Indianapolis Symphony's Marilyn K. Glick Prize, two BMI Composer Awards, and Honorable Mention as MTNA's Distinguished Composer of the Year.

Daniel's orchestra music has been widely performed.  In 2016, MacArthur Fellow Bright Sheng conducted Rising Moon with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and Cataclysm was performed by Santtu-Matias Rouvali and the Indianapolis Symphony, after previous performances with the USC Symphony and the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic in Russia.  Daniel's piece Chasm was performed by the Curtis Symphony and subsequently selected by Robert Spano for a performance at the inaugural Aspen Composers Showcase.  Meanwhile, his earlier works Regenerations and Rolling River were read by the Nashville Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, and the Rutgers, NEC, and Brevard Orchestras.

Daniel has also collaborated with leading chamber groups, including PRISM Quartet, Mirror Visions Ensemble, members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center & CMS II, and many musicians from Ensemble Connect, Astral Artists, and Young Concert Artists.  Daniel has also worked with emerging new music groups around the U.S. including Kinetic Ensemble (Houston), Zafa Collective (Chicago), Agarita (San Antonio), and the Exponential Ensemble (NYC).  His music has been featured American Public Media's "Performance Today" with Fred Child, PBS Philadelphia's "WHYY" series, and many other outlets.  Daniel can also be heard as a composer, percussionist, and conductor on recordings of the Naxos, Albany, and Navona labels.

Directing the presenting series DTM Concerts, Daniel has worked for over a decade to curate and champion contemporary music with many groups.  In 2020, Duo ING performs the "Refractions" project at the Yellow Barn Festival and the Tenri Cultural Center in New York, and in 2019, the acclaimed Aizuri Quartet gave a five-city tour of the "Intricate Machines" program, with both projects extensively featuring recent works by living composers.  Previously, Daniel served as Assistant Director and Percussionist with Thornton EDGE sinfonietta (2014-16), Acting Artistic Director of the Melos Music collective (2010-12), and Assistant Director of the Aspen Percussion Ensemble (2007), organizing many premieres, recordings, and tours with these groups.

Daniel earned degrees in Percussion and Composition from Rutgers (BM), NEC (MM), Curtis (AD), and USC (DMA).  He received composition fellowships from the Aspen, Fontainebleau, and Brevard festivals, and also spent two additional summers at Aspen as a percussionist.  He has previously taught as a Lecturer or Graduate Assistant at each of his major educational institutions, and at the Walden Festival in New Hampshire.  In 2019, Daniel joined Bucknell University in Pennsylvania as an Assistant Professor of Music.