Danielpour, Richard

Danielpour, Richard , American composer; b. N.Y., Jan. 28, 1956. He studied at Oberlin (Ohio) Coll., then at the New England Cons, of Music in Boston (B.M., 1980) before pursuing graduate studies in composition with Mennin and Persichetti at the Juilliard School in N.Y. (M.M., 1982; D.M.A., 1986) and piano studies with Hollander and Lettvin. He taught at the Coll. of New Rochelle and Marymount Manhattan Coll. (1984–88). In 1989 he was a guest composer at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome. In 1991–92 he was composer-in-residence of the Seattle Sym. Orch., and in 1994 of the Santa Fe (N.Mex.) Chamber Music Festival. He currently teaches on the composition faculty at the Curtis Inst. and at the Manhattan School of Music, and is completing a 3- year composer residency with the Pacific Sym. His awards include a Guggenheim fellow-ship, a Rockefeller Foundation grant, and two awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Danielpour’s widely performed music exhibits a modern Romantic tenor and is often programmatically derived.

Works

DRAMATIC B a l l e t : Anima Mundi (1995; also a concert suite); Urban Dances: Dance Suite in Five Movements (1996). ORCH.: 4 syms.: No. 1, Dona Nobis Pacem (1984–85), No. 2, Visions, for Soprano, Tenor, and Orch., after Dylan Thomas (1986; San Francisco, Dec. 19, 1986), No. 3, Journey Without Distance, for Soprano, Chamber Chorus, and Orch., after Schumann (1989–90; Akron, Feb. 24, 1990), and No. 4, Celestial Night (1997); First Light for Chamber Orch. (1988; also for Orch., 1989); The Awakened Heart (1990); 2 piano concertos: No. 1, Metamorphosis (N.Y., April 21, 1990) and No. 2 (1993; N.Y, March 30, 1994); Song of Remembrance (1991); Toward the Splendid City (1992); Cello Concerto (San Francisco, Sept. 14, 1994); Concerto for Orchestra:” Zoroastrian Riddles” (1996); Elegies (1997); Vox Populi (1998); The Night Rainbow (1999); Violin Concerto, A Fool’s Paradise (1999); Voices of Remembrance, concerto for String Quartet and Orch. (2000). CHAMBER : 3 string quartets (n.d., withdrawn; Shadow Dances, 1992; Psalms of Sorrow for Baritone and String Quartet, 1994); Urban Dances I (1989) and II (1993) for Brass Quintet; Piano Quintet (1988); Fantasy Variation for Cello and Piano (1997); Feast of Fools for Bassoon and String Quartet (1998); A Child’s Reliquary, piano trio (1999). PIANO : Piano Fantasy (1980); The Enchanted Garden (1992). VOCAL: Prologue and Prayer for Chorus and String Orch. (1982; rev. 1988); Sonnets to Orpheus I for Soprano and Ensemble (1991) and Book II for Baritone and Ensemble (1994); Songs of the Night for Tenor, Violin, Cello, and Piano (1993); Canticle of Peace for Baritone Solo and Chorus (1995); I Am Not Prey for Soprano and Piano, 4-Hands (1996); Sweet Talk: Four Songs on Texts by Toni Morrison for Soprano, Cello, Double Bass, and Piano (1997); Spirits in the Well, song cycle for Soprano and Orch. after Toni Morrison (1998).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire