Discipline: Music Composition

Daniel Asia

Discipline: Music Composition
Region: Tucson, AZ
MacDowell Fellowships: 1979
Daniel Asia is an American composer. Born in Seattle, he received a B.A. from Hampshire College and a M.M. from the Yale School of Music. His teachers included Jacob Druckman, Stephen Albert, Gunther Schuller, and Isang Yun in composition, and Arthur Weisberg in conducting. Asia's works ranges from solo pieces to large-scale multi-movement works for orchestra, including five symphonies. He served on the faculty of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music as assistant professor of contemporary music and wind ensemble from 1981 to 1986. He worked in London as a visiting lecturer at City University from 1986–88 on a UK Fulbright Arts Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Since 1988, he has been professor of composition and head of the composition department at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He conducts the New York-based contemporary chamber ensemble The Musical Elements, which he co-founded in 1977. He also founded and directs the American Culture and Ideas Initiative.

Studios

Watson

Daniel Asia worked in the Watson studio.

Built in 1916 in memory of Regina Watson of Chicago, a musician and teacher, this studio was donated by a group of her friends, along with funds for its maintenance. Originally designed to serve as a composers’ studio with room for performance, Watson was used as a recital hall for chamber music for a…

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