Daniel Kellogg
“The sheer polish and profundity of Daniel Kellogg’s writing commands attention,” wrote the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. His busy career has been highlighted by numerous awards and a growing list of commissions.
In March 2007, Kellogg’s Pyramus and Thisbe received its premiere performance to rave reviews. Commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Leonard Slatkin as part of the citywide “Shakespeare in Washington” Festival, the work was written in collaboration with Tony Award-winning librettist Mark O’Donnell, and narrated by renowned actor John Lithgow. Mr. Kellogg’s Praegustatum, which was commissioned and premiered last year by the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, received its U.S. premiere at the Aspen Music Festival in August 2006, and St. Andrew’s Church by the Sea (MA) premiered a new work that it commissioned in celebration of its 100th anniversary. The Colorado Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jeffrey Kahane, opened its 2006-2007 season with a new work commissioned from Kellogg in celebration of the new Frederic C. Hamilton Building at the Denver Art Museum. Kellogg is also writing an oratorio based on the Book of Daniel, commissioned by Soli Deo Gloria, Inc., which will be premiered by the San Diego Symphony, conducted by Jahja Ling.
The South Dakota Symphony has chosen Kellogg as its composer-in-residence for three seasons, beginning in the fall of 2006. Daniel Kellogg will also hold a Music Alive residency with the Green Bay (WI) Symphony in 2007-2008.
In November 2005, The Philadelphia Orchestra premiered Kellogg’s work, Ben, commemorating the 300th birthday of Benjamin Franklin, conducted by Christoph Eschenbach. His music has been premiered by the Ying Quartet, the President’s Own United States Marine Band, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, the Yale Philharmonic, cellist Fred Sherry, flutist Catherine Ramirez, and eighth blackbird. His works have been performed at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and the National Gallery of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Caramoor Music Festival, and broadcast on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today,” New York’s WQXR, and China National Radio.
Kellogg has been honored with two Charles Ives Awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, in 2003 and 1997. More recently, he was awarded his sixth ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award. He also received the 2003 ASCAP Rudolf Nissim Award for his orchestral work Jasper and Carnelian, which was premiered by the Santa Barbara Symphony conducted by Gisele Ben-Dor. He won the 2002 Harvey Gaul Composition Competition to write a work for the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and the 2000 William Schuman Prize from BMI. Kellogg was chosen as Young Concert Artists Composer-in-Residence in 2002.
Born in Wilton, CT in 1976, Kellogg received his Bachelor’s degree from the Curtis Institute and Master’s and Doctoral degrees from the Yale School of Music. He has studied at Indiana University, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. His teachers have included Don Freund, Ned Rorem, Jennifer Higdon, Joseph Schwantner, Ezra Laderman, and Martin Bresnick. Mr. Kellogg served as composer-in-residence at the University of Connecticut in 2000-2001, and has since returned as a visiting lecturer. He currently holds the post of Associate Professor of Composition at the University of Colorado Boulder and resides in Colorado with his wife, pianist Hsing-ay Hsu Kellogg, and their daughter, Kaela Li.
His Divinum Mysterium has been released, to critical acclaim, on eighth blackbird’s Cedille Records CD,Beginnings.