“Chaconne,” a piece written by BYU-Hawaii music professor, Dan Bradshaw, airs on America Public Media’s “Performance Today, Friday, 30 November 2007. An interview segment by host Fred Child and Bradshaw is scheduled as part of the broadcast.
The program broadcasts at 12 noon on HPR’s FM 88.1, and will be available for online listening at www.performancetoday.org for seven days after the program airs.
Written as the dissertation for Bradshaw’s doctoral degree in composition from Indiana University, the piece was selected by the Minnesota Orchestra for their seventh annual Composers Institute held in October in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Bradshaw attended the institute and had the opportunity to work and receive feedback from professional musicians Aaron Jay Kernis (pictured above) and Finish conductor, Osmo Vanska, who directed the piece in concert. (See previous newsroom story. )
| Minnesota Orchestra |
After the Minnesota performance, Michael Barone, host of MPR’s “Pipe Dreams” program, praised Bradshaw’s work in a letter to the editor of the St. Paul Pioneer Press:
“I was delighted to see a review of the Minnesota Orchestra's Composer Institute concert, an important event so ably presented by Osmo Vänskä and the MNOrch players. But I was more than a bit dismayed that David Hawley somehow overlooked what many thought was the most successful work of the evening, the Chaconne by Daniel Bradshaw.
Bradshaw displayed exceptional nerve by writing in a time-honored format, risking comparison with the chaconnes of Bach and Brahms. Yet he displayed a keen sense of orchestration and an imaginative style that retained cogency without seeming common, offering his ideas in a thoughtful contemporary vocabulary. The adventure upon which he led us was fresh (and refreshing), even if the "game" (the chaconne format) was traditional."
Bradshaw has written in a variety of styles and genres, from large orchestral works to interactive electronic pieces. His music has been described as "simply beautiful," "stunning," and "it's like music that should never have been written."
His most recent commission came from the Barlow Endowment to write Delights and Shadows, a song cycle for Metropolitan Opera star Ariel Bybee and violinist Alison Dalton of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The work was premiered at BYU-Hawaii by Dalton and Bybee in March of this year. (See previous newsroom story.)
His orchestral music has been performed by the American Composers Orchestra, has received an Honorable Mention from the Minnesota Orchestra and was awarded the Dean’s Prize at Indiana University for the outstanding student composition in 2003.