Daron Hagen

The music, prose, and films of Daron Hagen have inspired an array of international performances, commissions, and formidable champions spanning several generations: from Leonard Bernstein and JoAnn Falletta to Mei-Ann Chen and Lidiya Yankovskaya; from Gary Graffman and Leonard Slatkin to Kate Lindsey and Lara Downes. Composer of 14 operas and two internationally-laurelled composer-director edited opera films, 6 symphonies (major works for ASCAP’s 75th Anniversary, the New York Philharmonic’s 150th, the Curtis Institute’s 75th, Yaddo’s 100th, and institutions such as the Seattle Opera, Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Albany Symphony, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra), 14 concertos, chamber music and over 300 widely-performed art songs, he is also a prolific stage and film director, librettist, and the author of a critically acclaimed memoir, Duet With the Past.

He studied at Curtis and Juilliard, has taught at schools from Bard to Curtis, the Chicago College of Performing Arts to the Princeton Atelier and led music festivals and non-profit foundations. A Lifetime Member of the Corporation of Yaddo, he has adjudicated for the NEA, Copland House, CRI, Joy in Singing, NATS, Opera America, VCCA, ASCAP, and received two awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Kennedy Center Friedheim Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship, two Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residencies, and the Barlow Endowment, Bearns, and Nissim Prizes. His music is recorded on labels from Sony Classical to CRI, and published by Peermusic Classical. Represented by Encompass Arts, he lives in Rhinebeck, New York with his wife, composer/performer/educator Gilda Lyons and their sons.