Daniel Kellogg

Of all the arts, music affects me most deeply.  A spectacular moment in a beautifully crafted piece of music can bring me to the brink of tears.  This is a reaction to both the expressive power of the music and the magnificent craft that elevates this expressivity to a new level.  I write music because I aspire to express aspects of my unique life experience through what I consider to be the most powerful of mediums.  I uniquely experience something that is extraordinary and I reshape and express that experience through music.  Communication with others is fundamental to the reasons why I write music and why I think art is necessary.  I have dedicated my life to writing music and believe that art will feed people much as food feeds people.

In the last few years much of my creative energies have turned towards orchestral music.  The symphonic orchestra is a wonderful instrument with centuries of repertoire and history.  I am fascinated by the infinite combination of colors and the vast expressive range.  Many recent pieces have dealt with complex textures that might include 40-50 independent lines (including 18 part string divisi).  The minute details of such textures combine to create a larger sound masses that moves and shifts in spectacular ways.

My musical language is informed by many influences.  I consider myself part of the American tonal tradition and yet I have a great love for many thornier European composers.  I studied electric bass during high school and played everything from James Brown funk lines to Nirvana covers to jazz standards.  I have also sung in many choirs and have a particular love of Anglican chant.  For a while I regularly attended Grateful Dead concerts and I continue to enjoy 60s and 70s rock.  All of these experiences inform my musical identity.  Ultimately good music is good music and I don’t believe any particular aesthetic or style is superior.  Each musical language has criteria by which is can be critiqued and it is the artists duty to hold themselves to the highest possible standards.

Teaching composition is some sort mysterious mix of cultivating craft, exploring and furthering one’s unique aesthetic, pushing against and questioning one’s aesthetic, studying the masters, looking for influence in unexpected places, and dealing with professional concerns.  Ultimately writing a piece, hearing it performed live, and undergoing a brutal self-critique is the best teacher.  Composition lessons are a chance for an external element (the teacher) to prod, stir, kneed, massage, encourage, and question what would otherwise be a private process.  We are eager to work with very gifted students and see them blossom in unexpected ways.

10 things you will find on my Ipod:

  1. Bitches Brew by Miles Davis
  2. Sieben Worte by Sofia Gubaidulina
  3. Appalachian Spring (13 instrument version) by Aaron Copland recorded by the Orpheus Ensemble
  4. Concord Sonata by Charles Ives as recorded by Gil Kalish
  5. Vingt Regards by Olivier Messiaen
  6. Opus 109, 110, 111 Piano Sonatas by the Big B
  7. All the recorded comedy of Mitch Hedberg, Steve Martin, Bob Newhart, and Steven Wright
  8. Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass
  9. A random smattering of live Phish and Grateful Dead
  10. Ligeti Etudes

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