Richard Danielpour

Biography

Award winning composer Richard Danielpour has established himself as one of the most gifted and sought-after composers of his generation. His music has attracted an international and illustrious array of champions, and, as a devoted mentor and educator, he has also had a significant impact on the younger generation of composers. His list of commissions include some of the most celebrated artists of our day including Yo-Yo Ma, Jessye Norman, Dawn Upshaw, Emanuel Ax, Gil Shaham, Frederica von Stade, Thomas Hampson, Gary Graffman, Anthony McGill, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, the Guarneri and Emerson String Quartets, the New York City and Pacific Northwest Ballets, and institutions such as the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Maryinsky, and Vienna Chamber Orchestras, Orchestre National de France, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and many more. With Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, Danielpour created Margaret Garner, his first opera, which premiered in 2005 and had a second production with New York City Opera. He has received the American Academy of Arts & Letters Charles Ives Fellowship, a Guggenheim Award, Bearns Prize from Columbia University, and fellowships and residencies from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Copland House, and the American Academies in Berlin and Rome. He is on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music and Curtis Institute. 

In 2016, Danielpour had seven world premieres in the U.S. Most notable among them, were his Percussion Concerto (January 2016) with the New Jersey Symphony, his ballet Layla and the Majnun (April 2016) for the Nashville ballet, and most recently, the premiere of Talking to Aphrodite, a song cycle for voice and string orchestra, written in collaboration with Erica Jong and premiered by the Sejong Soloists and Sarah Shafer at Carnegie Hall in December 2016. He is currently working on an 80 minute oratorio, The Passion of Yeshua, which will premiere in July 2018 at the Oregon Bach Festival. 

Danielpour is one of the most recorded composers of his generation; many of his recordings can be found on the Naxos and Sony Classical labels. Danielpour's music is published by Lean Kat Music and Associated Music Publishers.