Dan Visconti (b. 1982) composes concert music infused with the directness of expression and maverick spirit of the American vernacular. His compositions often explore the rough timbres, propulsive rhythms, and improvisational energy characteristic of jazz, bluegrass, and rock—elements that tend to collide in unexpected ways with Visconti’s experience as a classically-trained violinist, resulting in a growing body of music one reviewer describes as “both mature and youthful, bristling with exhilarating musical ideas and a powerfully crafted lyricism.”

The 2009/10 concert season will feature several premieres of Visconti’s compositions, including a work for the Berlin Philharmonic Scharoun Ensemble commissioned by the Annenberg Foundation, a commission from the Jupiter Quartet for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s international string quartet series at Alice Tully Hall, and an extended work for cellist Joshua Roman and pianist Helen Huang commissioned by Town Hall Seattle. Other recent commissions have come from the Kronos Quartet, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Albany Symphony, the Annapolis Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, the New York Youth Symphony, Antares, the Bakken Trio, the Corigliano Quartet, the Janaki String Trio, and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Visconti’s music continues to receive performances by some of the top interpreters of contemporary music, including eighth blackbird, the American Composers Orchestra, the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Brave New Works, the Lake Quartet, Vox Novus, the Sybarite Chamber Players, and Washington DC’s Contemporary Music Forum; in recent seasons the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, the Spokane Symphony, and the South Carolina Philharmonic have also given his orchestral works repeated hearings.

His compositions been honored with the Berlin Prize, the Bearns Prize from Columbia University, the Leonore Annenberg Fellowship in the performing arts, and the Cleveland Arts Prize; awards from BMI and ASCAP, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Society of Composers, and the National Association of Composers USA; and grants from the American Music Center, the Barlow Endowment, Meet the Composer, the Fromm Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bascom Little Fund, and Chamber Music America. He has also been the recipient of artist fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Copland House, the Lucas Artists Program at Villa Montalvo, and the Virginia Commission for the Arts.

Visconti studied composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Yale School of Music, primarily with Margaret Brouwer, Aaron Jay Kernis, Ezra Laderman, and Zhou Long. He is a member of BMI and currently resides in Washington, DC.

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