Title: Brass Quintet
Commission: 2000
Completed: 2001
Instrumentation: brass quintet
Premiere Location: 
Premiere Ensemble: American Brass Quintet
Notes:

Title: Songs from the Page of Swords
Commission: 
Completed: 1986
Instrumentation: bass-baritone, oboe, and chamber orchestra
Premiere Location: 92nd Street Y, New York City
Premiere Ensemble:
Notes:

Daniel Asia has been an eclectic and unique composer from the start. He has enjoyed grants from Meet the Composer, a UK Fulbright award, Guggeneheim Fellowship, DAAD, MacDowell and Tanglewood fellowships, ASCAP and BMI prizes, Copland Fund grants, Fromm and Barlow Foundation commissions, among numerous others. He was honored with a Music Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. From 1991–1994 he was the Meet the Composer Composer-in-Residence of the Phoenix Symphony.

Asia’s five symphonies have received wide acclaim from live performance and their international recordings. The Fifth Symphony, commissioned for the Tucson and Jerusalem symphony orchestras in celebration of Israel’s 60th anniversary, is based on the poetry of the Jewish-American writer Paul Pines, the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, and Psalms.

His orchestral works have been commissioned or performed by the symphony orchestras of Cincinnati, Seattle, Milwaukee, New Jersey, Phoenix, American Composers Orchestra, Columbus (OH), Grand Rapids, Jacksonville, Chattanooga, Memphis, Tucson, Knoxville, Greensboro, Seattle Youth, and the 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.

In the chamber music arena, Mr. Asia has written for, and been championed by, the Dorian Wind Quintet, American Brass Quintet, Meadowmount Trio, Cypress Quartet, Andre-Michel Schub (piano), Carter Brey (cello), Alex Klein (oboe), Benjamin Verdery (guitar), John Shirley-Quirk and Sara Watkins (baritone and oboe), Jonathan Shames (piano), among others. Under a Barlow Endowment grant, he completed work for The Czech Nonet, the longest continuously performing chamber ensemble on the planet, founded in 1924.

After receiving his BA degree from Hampshire College, Mr. Asia received his MM from the Yale School of Music. After serving as Assistant Professor of Contemporary Music and Wind Ensemble at the Oberlin Conservatory from 1981–86, Mr. Asia resided in London from 1986–88 working under the auspices of the UK Fulbright Arts Award and Guggenheim Fellowships. He is Professor of Composition, and head of the Composition Department, at The University of Arizona Fred Fox School of Music. The recorded works of Daniel Asia may be heard on the labels of Summit, New World, Attacca, Albany, Innova, Koch International, Babel, and Mushkatweek. His catalogue of compositions is administered by Modern Works Music Publishing.