Education:
B.Mus., North Texas State Univ.
M.Mus., Manhattan School of Music, Theatre & Dance
M.Mus.A., D.M.A., Yale Univ.
Michael Daugherty is one of the most frequently commissioned, programmed, and recorded composers on the American concert music scene today. His music is rich with cultural allusions and bears the stamp of classic modernism, with colliding tonalities and blocks of sound; at the same time, his melodies can be eloquent and stirring. Daugherty has been hailed by The Times (London) as “a master icon maker” with a “maverick imagination, fearless structural sense and meticulous ear.” Daugherty first came to international attention when the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Zinman, performed his Metropolis Symphony at Carnegie Hall in 1994. Since that time, Daugherty’s music has entered the orchestral, band and chamber music repertoire and made him, according to the League of American Orchestras, one of the ten most performed living American composers.
Born in 1954 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Daugherty is the son of a dance-band drummer and the oldest of five brothers, all professional musicians. He studied music composition at the University of North Texas (1972-76), the Manhattan School of Music (1976-78) and computer music at Boulez's IRCAM in Paris (1979-80). He received his doctorate from Yale University in 1986 where his teachers included Jacob Druckman, Earle Brown, Roger Reynolds, and Bernard Rands. During this time, he also collaborated with jazz arranger Gil Evans in New York, and pursued further studies with composer György Ligeti in Hamburg, Germany (1982-84). After teaching music composition from 1986-1990 at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Daugherty joined the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance in Ann Arbor, Michigan where, since 1991, he has been a mentor to many of today's most talented young composers.
Daugherty is a frequent guest of professional orchestras, festivals, universities, and conservatories around the world, where he participates in pre-concert talks, teaches composition master classes, and works with student composers and ensembles. Daugherty has been the composer-in-residence with the Louisville Symphony Orchestra (2000), Detroit Symphony Orchestra (1999-2003), Colorado Symphony Orchestra (2001-2002), Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music (2001-04, 2006-08), Westshore Symphony Orchestra (2005-06), Eugene Symphony (2006), Henry Mancini Summer Institute (2006), Music from Angel Fire Chamber Music Festival (2006) and Pacific Symphony (2010).
Daugherty’s orchestral music has been conducted by, among others, Marin Alsop, David Amado, Tito Ceccherini, Michael Christie, Carl St. Clair, Dennis Russell Davies, James DePriest, Enrique Diemecke, William Eddins, JoAnn Falletta, Giancarlo Guerrero, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Daniel Hege, Mariss Jansons, Neeme Järvi, Kristjan Järvi, Jeffrey Kahane, David Lockington, David Loebel, Grant Llewellyn, Ingo Metzmacher, David Allan Miller, John Nelson, Larry Rachleff, Timothy Russell, Kenneth Schermerhorn, Gerald Schwartz, Leif Segerstam, Leonard Slatkin, Steven Sloane, Lawrence Leighton Smith, Markus Stenz, Patrick Summers, Michael Tilson Thomas, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Hugh Wolff and David Zinman.
Soloists who have performed his music include baritone Thomas Hampson, percussionists Colin Currie and Evelyn Glennie, flutists Emmanuel Pahud and Amy Porter, classical guitarist Manuel Barrueco, violinists Alexandre da Costa, Francesco D'Orazio, Gregory Fulkerson and Ida Kavafian, clarinetists John Bruce Yeh and Michael Wayne, bassoonist Charles Ullery, and pianists Emanuele Arciuli, Paul Crossley, Christopher O’Riley, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Terrence Wilson. Ensembles who have performed Daugherty’s music include, among others, the Bassoon Brothers, Boston Music Viva, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Ensemble Bash (UK), Sentieri Selvaggi (Italy), Ensemble Intercontemporain (France), Ethos Percussion Ensemble, Kronos Quartet, London Sinfonietta (UK), Netherlands Winds Ensemble, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and Present Music.
Daugherty has received numerous awards, distinctions, and fellowships for his music including a Fulbright Fellowship (1977), Kennedy Center Friedheim Award (1989), Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1991), fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1992) and the Guggenheim Foundation (1996), the Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (2000) and the Michigan Governor’s Award (2004). In 2005, Daugherty received the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra Composer's Award, and in 2007, the Delaware Symphony Orchestra selected Daugherty as the winner of the A. I. duPont Award. Also in 2007, Daugherty was named "Outstanding Classical Composer" at the Detroit Music Awards and received the American Bandmasters Association Ostwald Award for his composition Raise the Roof for Timpani and Symphonic Band. His music is published by Peermusic Classical and since 2003 by Boosey and Hawkes. Daugherty's music can be heard on the Albany, Argo, Delos, Equilibrium, Naxos, Nonesuch and Sony labels.
