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Bio

Daniel Asia (b. 1953) is one of a small number of composers who has traversed all the realms of composition with equal skill. As testament to this, he is a 2009 recipient of an American Academy of Sciences and Letters Award. Elliott Hurwitt writes in a Schwann Opus review of the composer’s music, “Daniel Asia is a genuine creative spirit, an excellent composer...He is a welcome addition to the roster of our strongest group of living composers.“

His orchestral works have been commissioned or performed by the symphony orchestras of Cincinnati, Seattle, Milwaukee, New Jersey, Phoenix, American Composers Orchestra (New York City), Columbus (OH), Grand Rapids, Jacksonville, Chattanooga, Memphis, Tucson, Knoxville, Greensboro, Seattle Youth, Brooklyn, Colorado, and Pilsen (Czech Republic) Philharmonics. Asia’s works have been performed by renowned conductors including Zdenek Macal, Jesus Lopez-Cobos, Eiji Oue, Lawrence Leighton Smith, Hermann Michael, Carl St. Clair, James Sedares, Stuart Malina, Robert Bernhardt, George Hanson, Jonathan Shames, Odaline de la Martinez, and Christopher Kendall.

He is a recipient of prestigious grants and fellowships in music, including a Meet the Composer/Reader's Digest Consortium Commission, United Kingdom Fulbright Arts Award Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, four NEA Composers Grants, a M. B. Rockefeller Grant, an Aaron Copland Fund for Music Grant, MacDowell Colony and Tanglewood Fellowships, ASCAP and BMI composition prizes, and a DAAD fellowship for study in Germany. 

In 2024, Maestro Asia was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. 

 

​Daniel Asia was a Professor of Music at the University of Arizona from 1988- 2024, and is currently the President of the Center for American Culture and Ideas, aka Polyhymnia.

 

For further information on publications contact Modern Works Music Publishing: info@modernworkspub.com
 

For information on Asia recordings contact Summit Records:

http://www.summitrecords.com
 

© Daniel Asia 2025

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