# Michael Daugherty



## Guest (May 9, 2015)

For those of you looking for new classical works, check out Michael Daugherty. Those unfamiliar with Daugherty, he is no lightweight. This Wiki article lists some pretty impressive credentials:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Daugherty

I picked up his CD, _Fire and Blood_ from a CD store and find it quite intriguing. The piece was inspired by the artwork of Mexican artist Diego Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo--namely the murals found on the courtyard walls of the Detroit Institute of the Arts. I've seen them many times over the years. Rivera also painted a mural found on the wall at the Engineering Society of Detroit where I used to work.

Daugherty was intrigued by the murals and wrote this piece to honor them while he was a composer-in-residence for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra ('99-03). In fact, the orchestra on the recording is the DSO. It is a violin concerto and the piece premiered at Detroit's Symphony Hall in May of 2003 with Ida Kafavian on violin and Neeme Jarvi conducting. This performance was recorded and is what is on the CD.

The work comes in three movements: I. Volcano, II. River Rouge and III. Assembly Line.















There are two other pieces on the CD: _MotorCity Triptych_ and _Raise the Roof_.









The north wall



























Rivera himself raised the possibility of the murals being made into symphonies. Mr. Daugherty simply obliged.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

I like him too.

Metropolis Symphony might be his most well-known work.
I like UFO, a percussion concerto.
He has two Elvis pieces: Dead Elvis (bassoonist dresses like Elvis) and Elvis Everywhere (for three Elvis impersonators and string quartet).

Some of this smacks of gimmickry, but there's a lot of good music there, IMO.


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## Guest (May 10, 2015)

I don't know that classical music was ever not gimmicky. Maybe to a lot of people back then the stuff composers in the 18th century wrote seemed as gimmicky as Daugherty's stuff now. I imagine a lot of people probably thought Mozart was out of his gourd for "The Magic Flute" and all this stuff about Freemasonry. 200 years in the future, people may not see the dead Elvis thing as gimmicky because Elvis will no doubt be regarded as one of the most important musical figures ever. But if modern classical has any future then it be relevant to today's issues and personalities. I imagine there are pieces about 9-11 and there is even an opera about Charles Manson by John Moran. At first, I thought, "What a silly idea!" But when I heard it, I loved it!





I think that's Moran doing Manson and sounds amazingly like him.


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## maestro267 (Jul 25, 2009)

I like his music. I've got two discs of it so far. Metropolis Symphony and Deus ex machina (piano/orch.) on one, and Philadelphia and UFO (percussion/orch.) on the other. All great works with infectious sense of rhythm and interesting use of antiphonal percussion ensembles.


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

Evelyn Glennie played the last movement of UFO in one of those 'Proms in the Park' a few years ago - I've also seen her perform it live, and it was great.
That being said, Michael Daugherty is one of those composers that I wish I liked more than I do. He has many of the right ingredients: exciting, rhythmic, big sound, tons of percussion; but somehow there's an important button that he just doesn't press.


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## nightscape (Jun 22, 2013)

Heard his 'Reflections on the Mississippi' tuba concerto this year with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Very lovely and energetic piece of music.


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