The Chamber Music of Daron Hagen

(HOUSTON, TX ) Opera Vista, winner of the 2010 Houston Press MasterMind Award, announces the 2010 Opera Vista Festival, featuring the 3^rd Annual Vista Competition for New Opera, will take place March 20^th-27^th. Opera Vista focuses on bringing contemporary opera to Houston and the Vista Competition is an international search for ground-breaking new works by modern composers.

On Thursday, March 25th beginning at 7:30pm, Opera Vista will hold a chamber music concert with

music composed by jury member Daron Hagen at 7:30pm on March 25^th at the Czech Center .

The music of Daron Aric Hagen is notable for its warm lyricism, but his style defies easy categorization.  His music is broadly eclectic, drawing on a variety of styles as diverse as jazz, Broadway, Latin music, Italian verismo, and soft rock. While Hagen works with consistent success in a number of genres, the foundation of his oeuvre is the art song, a form that highlights his melodic and dramatic talents, exemplified by “Dear Youth” (based on American Civil War stories) and “Songs of Madness and Sorrow.” His teacher Ned Rorem famously stated of him, “Daron is music.”

Born in Milwaukee in 1961, Hagen began his musical studies at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, continuing his education at the University of Wisconsin, the Curtis Institute of Music, and the Juilliard School. Hagen’s teachers include such prominent composers as Ned Rorem, Joseph Schwantner, David Diamond, Witold Lutoslawski, and Leonard Bernstein. Hagen’s numerous honors and awards include the Bearns Prize from Columbia University, the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Opera America’s “Next Stage” Award, two Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio residencies, and the Barlow International Composition Prize for Chamber Music.