Composer and conductor Henry L. Dorn’s compositions have been performed by noteworthy ensembles, including the Minnesota Orchestra, the Grammy-winning Harlem Quartet, Aizuri Quartet, the Elysian Trombone Quartet, Argento Ensemble, the Sanctuary Jazz Orchestra, and the Dallas Wind Symphony. Dorn has worked with the United States Army Field Band, Air Force Band, and most recently guest conducted the United States Army Band “Pershing’s Own.” He is Conductor Designee of the St. Olaf Band at St. Olaf College.
Dorn has recently had works performed by Minnesota Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, and Music from Copland House. He will have performances with the Detroit and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras in early 2024.
He has received the inaugural Future of Music faculty fellowship from the Cleveland Institute of Music and an ASCAP Foundation’s Morton Gould Young Composer Award. He holds a doctor of musical arts in wind conducting from Michigan State University and completed studies at the University of Memphis and at Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. He is currently a doctoral candidate in composition at Michigan State University.
He has studied conducting with Kevin L. Sedatole, Harlan D. Parker, and Kraig Alan Williams. His composition teachers have included David Biedenbender, Ricardo Lorenz, Alexis Bacon, Oscar Bettison, Kamran Ince, and Jack Cooper, and he has had additional studies with Kevin Puts, Joel Puckett, Derek Bermel, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Joseph Schwantner.
At MacDowell, Dorn worked on his song cycle for mezzo soprano entitled I, too, am America, which sets several poems from the "Our Land" segment of Langston Hughes first book The Weary Blues.
Portrait by Matthew Mitchell
