MICHAEL DAUGHERTY
Michael Daugherty b. 1954, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Michael Daugherty has created a niche in the music world that is uniquely his own, composing concert music inspired by American popular culture. He first came to international attention in the 1990’s with a series of witty, dark-humored, brilliantly-scored pieces inspired by 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 symphonic 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, the violin concerto Fire and Blood and Time Machine for Three Conductors and Orchestra. 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. On August 3, 2007 the Festival will present the West Coast Premieres of Daugherty’s Raise the Roof (Steve Hearn, timpani) and Ghost Ranch.