Composer Daniel Kellogg has become one of the nation’s most prominent young composers. His 2010-11 season includes commissions for the Takács Quartet and a work for chorus and symphonic band, commissioned by Soli Deo Gloria, for the Wheaton College Symphonic Band and Choirs, conducted by John Nelson. This season also brings performances of Mr. Kellogg’s work at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Cleveland Chamber Music Society, Denver’s Friends of Chamber Music, the University of Colorado at Boulder, New York’s 92nd Street Y, and in Ann Arbor, as well as by the Air Force Academy, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Augusta Symphony, and the Fort Smith Symphony.
Mr. Kellogg’s Four Valentines was premiered by the Borromeo String Quartet at New York’s Merkin Concert Hall in December 2008. In March 2009, the Takács Quartet and the University of Colorado Wind Symphony premiered A Tent for the Sun, commissioned by Maestro Allan McMurray and the University of Colorado College of Music, as part of a five-school consortium. Other works have included a piano quintet, premiered at the Aspen Music Festival in 2008, and Western Skies, a commission from the National Symphony that was premiered at the Kennedy Center in April 2009, conducted by Iván Fischer, with performances in Beijing, Xi’an and Seoul in June 2009.
Mr. Kellogg’s first commission from the National Symphony was Pyramus and Thisbe, which was premiered in 2007 to rave reviews. Conducted by Leonard Slatkin as part of the citywide “Shakespeare in Washington” Festival, the work was narrated by renowned actor John Lithgow. Mr. Kellogg wrote his first oratorio, The Fiery Furnace, on a commission from Soli Deo Gloria, Inc. The work was premiered in 2008 by the San Diego Symphony, conducted by Jahja Ling. Mozart’s Hymn, which was commissioned and premiered in Paris by the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, received its U.S. premiere at the Aspen Music Festival in 2006. Refracted Skies was premiered and commissioned by the Colorado Symphony, conducted by Jeffrey Kahane, in celebration of the opening of the new Frederick C. Hamilton Building at the Denver Art Museum in 2006.
In 2005, The Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Christoph Eschenbach, premiered Mr. Kellogg’s work, Ben, which it commissioned to commemorate the 300th birthday of Benjamin Franklin. His music has been premiered by the Ying Quartet, the President’s United States Marine Band, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, cellist Fred Sherry, flutist Catherine Ramirez, and eighth blackbird. His works have been performed at the Caramoor Music Festival, and broadcast on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today,” New York’s WQXR, and China National Radio.
Mr. Kellogg completed his third year as composer-in-residence with the South Dakota Symphony during the 2008-09 season. He had previously been in residence with the Green Bay (WI) Symphony, which gave the premiere of La Luz for orchestra and chorus. Mr. Kellogg has been honored with two Charles Ives Awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and his sixth ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award. He also received ASCAP’s Rudolf Nissim Award for his orchestral work Jasper and Carnelian, which was premiered by the Santa Barbara Symphony. In 2002, he was chosen as Young Concert Artists Composer-in-Residence and won the Harvey Gaul Composition Competition to write a work for the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, and won the 2000 William Schuman Prize from BMI.
Born in Wilton, Connecticut in 1976, Mr. Kellogg received his Bachelor’s degree from the Curtis Institute and Master’s and Doctoral degrees from the Yale School of Music. He has studied at Indiana University, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. His teachers have included Don Freund, Ned Rorem, Jennifer Higdon, Joseph Schwantner, Ezra Laderman, and Martin Bresnick. Mr. Kellogg served as composer-in-residence at the University of Connecticut in 2000-2001, and has since returned as a visiting lecturer. He currently holds the post of Assistant Professor of Composition at the University of Colorado at Boulder and resides in Colorado with his wife, pianist Hsing-ay Hsu Kellogg, and their daughter, Kaela Li.
His Divinum Mysterium has been released, to critical acclaim, on eighth blackbird’s Cedille Records CD, “Beginnings.”
Daniel Kellogg Media
