Dan Welcher


Dan Welcher is an American composer, conductor, and music educator.
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Biography

Welcher was born in Rochester, New York and earned degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, studying bassoon, piano, and composition. He was principal bassooonist at the Louisville Orchestra and a professor of composition and music theory at University of Louisville from 1972 to 1978. He additionally taught at the Aspen Music Festival and School from 1976 until 1990, and began teaching at the University of Texas at Austin in 1978. He founded the UT New Music Ensemble and served as the assistant conductor of the Austin Symphony Orchestra from 1980 until 1990.
Welcher's compositions include concertos, symphonies, vocal literature, piano solos, and various kinds of chamber music. He also wrote two operas, Della's Gift, which premiered in Austin in 1987, and Holy Night, which premiered in 2004. Della's Gift has been performed with several opera companies including the New York City Opera. His works have been performed by such ensembles as the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Honolulu Symphony, the Boston Pops Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. His music is published by the Theodore Presser Company, among others. Recently completed works include Personal Ads: Eight Cabaret Songs, which is a song cycle for piano, soprano and tenor, and the Fifth Symphony, premiered by the Austin Symphony Orchestra on May 1, 2009.
Welcher's numerous accolades include awards and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the American Music Center, and ASCAP.
For several years, Welcher hosted a weekly radio series called Knowing the Score, aimed at introducing listeners to contemporary classical music.
Welcher held the Lee Hage Jamail Regents Professorship in Composition at the University of Texas, teaching music composition, and served as director of the UT New Music Ensemble until his abrupt departure in 2019 following numerous allegations of sexual misconduct as reported in a September 26, 2019 article in VAN Magazine.

List of works

Orchestra

Beyond Sight Bridges Bright Wings: A Valediction Castle Creek Fanfare/Overture Concerto de Camera
  • Concerto for Clarinet
  • Concerto for Flute
  • Concerto for Piano
  • Concerto for Timpani
  • Concerto for Violin Dervishes Haleakala: How Maui Snared the Sun Jackpot: A Celebratory Overture Prairie Light: Three Texas Water Colors of Georgia O'Keeffe Spumante
  • Symphony No. 1
  • Symphony No. 2 Night Watchers
  • Symphony No. 5 The Visions of Merlin Venti di Mare
  • ''Zion''

Wind band

Arches: An Impression for Concert Band Castle Creek Overture Circular Marches Glacier For The Mystic Harmony Laboring songs Minstrels of the Kells Perpetual Song Songs Without Words: Five Mood Pieces for Wind Ensemble Spumante
  • Symphony No. 3 Shaker Life
  • Symphony No. 4 American Visionary The Yellowstone Fires
  • ''Zion''

Chamber music

A Rag for Rags All the Words to All the Songs Another Rag for Rags
  • Brass Quintet Chameleon Music Dante Dances Elizabethan Variations Firewing: The Flame and the Moth Florestan's Falcon Harbor Music Hauntings Listen Up! A Guide to Melody, Harmony, Rhythm, Tonecolor and Counterpoint Mill Songs
  • Museon Polemos Nocturne and Dance
  • Partita Phaedrus
  • Quintet Reversible Jackets: Exercises in Conjugal Counterpoint Spirit Realms Stigma
  • String Quartet No. 1 The Wind Won't Listen
  • Trio Tsunami White Mares of the Moon
  • Woodwind Quintet No. 1
  • Woodwind Quintet No. 2 You Can Fool...
  • ''Zephyrus''

Keyboard

Dance Variations Dreaming of Goldberg High Tech Etudes Pachel's Bells Sonatina
  • ''The Birth of Shiva''

Opera

A Star Over Fifth Avenue Della's Gift Holy Night
  • ''The Yellow Wallpaper''

Vocal and choral

Abeja Blanca Canticle of the Sun Evening Scenes: Three Poems of James Agee Four More Personal Ads Four Personal Ads Go Slow, My Soul How to Make Coq au Vin JFK: The Voice of Peace Leaves of Grass My Life Closed Twice Remembrance in Black and White The Bequest Tickets for a Prayer Wheel
  • ''Vox femina: A Cycle of Poems by and about Women''