Opera Magazine describes Hagen's music as "both highly original and gripping; restless, questioning music that never loses its heart." Described by the Chicago Tribune as "a composer born to write operas," the New York Times notes, "Hagen has a gift for the big, sweeping tune," and the Times of London continues, "Hagen's inspired, soaring melodies send the characters looping off in arias of self-revelation." The Huffington Post declares his latest opera Amelia to be "in many ways, a work of genius." Ned Rorem, in Opera News, wrote, "To say that Daron Hagen is a remarkable musician is to underrate him. Daron is music." |
blog From where I stood in my tuxedo at the rail of the orchestra pit, looking up into the slowly filling theater, it looked as though nearly all 2800 seats would have people in them. The interior of the elegant opera house was a wine dark sea of plush red velvet seats. Alone, I had walked nearly every foot of it during technical rehearsals, getting an idea of what the audience would see from every angle, "infiltrating" the theater just as I had the cavernous old Oriental Landmark movie palace in Milwaukee as a teenager. The dream I had formulated there thirty-two years earlier, lying on the Oriental's stage on my back with a heap of musty safety curtain beneath my head, fingers interlaced at the nape of my neck, watching movies from behind the screen, had become reality.
The culmination not just of the past six years but also of my life so far as a composer, my grand opera Amelia, was about to be premièred in a 3.6 million dollar production by Seattle Opera, one of... news11 September 2010
Shelter Island, NY
THE SATYR from the song cycle Love Songs is featured by Darynn Zimmer in recital. For more information, click here. 24 September 2010
New York, NY
Phoenix Concerts
Church of St. Matthew and Saint Timothy
ALIVE IN A MOMENT [song cycle for voice and string quartet; New York premiere] Robert Frankenberry, tenor / Voxare String Quartet. For more information, click here.
8 October 2010
Yakima, WA
DH serves as artistic director and composer in residence for the Seasons Fall Music Festival. For more information, click here. |