Daniel Black
Composer In Residence
American composer/conductor Daniel Black has a strong connection to the rich Russian tradition of the St. Petersburg (Leningrad) Conservatory. Cultivating a neo-Romantic style that incorporates both tonal and atonal techniques, he has received commissions from the Eastman Wind Ensemble, Rockford Symphony, and UIC Theater Department, among others. He was a finalist and diploma winner of the International Prokofiev Composition Contest in April 2008. He has also been a winner of the “First, Listen” composition contest in Wisconsin.
Daniel has guest-conducted numerous professional orchestras and opera companies, including the Rockford Symphony, Oshkosh Symphony, Champaign-Urbana Symphony, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, South Shore Opera Company, St. Petersburg Symphony “Classica” and the St. Petersburg State Academic Symphony Orchestra. He was twice assistant conductor of the Peninsula Music Festival, and has recently been engaged as assistant conductor of the Spoleto Music Festival in Charleston, SC for 2014. In 2012-13 he was the Conductor-in-Residence of the International Beethoven Festival in Chicago, and has worked with the Danish National Symphony, the Royal Flemish Philharmonic, and the Charlotte Symphony as a competitor, masterclass participant, and candidate for assistant conductor, respectively.
Daniel is a candidate for music director of the Oshkosh Symphony, and currently conducts the Rockford Symphony Youth Orchestra and the UIC String Orchestra.
He was a conducting fellow at the 2011 Aspen Music Festival, the 2006 Cabrillo Festival, and the 2003 Brevard Music Festival, where he worked with widely acclaimed conductors Robert Spano, Hugh Wolff, Larry Rachleff, Marin Alsop, Daniel Lewis, David Effron, and Gunther Schuller. He has also participated in masterclasses with Edo De Waart and Kurt Masur.
A graduate of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, Eastman School of Music and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Mr. Black is a doctoral candidate in orchestral conducting at Northwestern University, where he worked primarily with Victor Yampolsky. In addition, he has studied composition privately with internationally-renown composer Richard Danielpour.
