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Michael Daugherty
Born in 1954 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Michael Daugherty is the son of a dance-band drummer and the oldest of five brothers, all professional musicians. He first came to international attention in the 1990’s with a series of witty, dark-humored, brilliantly-scored pieces inspired by diverse 20th-century American icons such as Superman, Jackie O, Elvis, J. Edgar Hoover, and Rosa Parks, and places such as Route 66, Niagara Falls, and Sunset Strip. With compositional originality and ingenuity to match his subject matter, Daugherty became one of America’s most frequently performed and commissioned living composers. The London Times has described Daugherty as “a master icon-maker” and hailed his “maverick imagination, fearless structural sense and meticulous ear”. His music has the uncanny knack of speaking everybody’s language at once while retaining the ability to surprise, move, stimulate, inspire and amuse. His idiom 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's music has been featured at the Cabrillo Festival numerous times over the last decade including, the Metropolis Symphony, Route 66, Bells for Stokowski, UFO (with Evelyn Glennie as percussion soloist), Le Tombeau de Liberace, Motown Metal, Rosa Parks Boulevard, and the violin concerto Fire and Blood. In February 2006, Marin Alsop premiered Daugherty's Ghost Ranch, inspired by the life and paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe, with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in the United Kingdom.
Recent works include Time Machine for Three Conductors and Orchestra (2002, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra), the violin concerto Fire and Blood (2003, Detroit Symphony Orchestra), Tell My Fortune (2004, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra of Columbus), Brooklyn Bridge for Solo Clarinet and Symphony Band (2005, University of Michigan Band, premiered at Carnegie Hall) and Ghost Ranch (2006, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra).
Daugherty studied music composition at North Texas State University (1972-76), Manhattan School of Music (1976-78) and computer music in Paris at IRCAM (1979-80). Daugherty received his doctorate in composition from Yale University in 1986 where his teachers included Jacob Druckman, Roger Reynolds, and Earle Brown. During this time he also collaborated with jazz arranger Gil Evans in New York and was a composition fellow at Tanglewood. Daugherty pursued further studies with composer Gyorgy Ligeti in Hamburg, Germany (1982-84). After teaching music composition several years at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio, Daugherty joined the music composition faculty at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) in 1991, where he is Professor of Composition.
Daugherty has received numerous awards for his music including the Stoeger Prize from the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, recognition from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Fulbright and Guggenheim Foundations. He has been composer-in-residence with, among others, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Westshore Symphony Orchestra, and Eugene Symphony Orchestra. His music is published by Peermusic Classical and Boosey & Hawkes.
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