Grammy-Award winning Richard Danielpour "is an outstanding composer for any time, one who knows how to communicate deep, important emotions through simple, direct means that nevertheless do not compromise" (New York Daily News). A distinctive American voice, his music is of large and romantic gestures, brilliantly orchestrated, deeply emotional, and rhythmically vibrant. His work has attracted an illustrious array of champions, and, as a devoted mentor and educator, he has also had a significant impact on a younger generation of composers. His first opera, Margaret Garner, written with Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, took critics and audiences by storm when it was premiered in 2005 by co-commissioning opera companies of Detroit, Cincinnati, and Philadelphia to sold-out houses. New York City Opera opened its 2007 with an entirely new production.

Much in demand across the globe, Mr. Danielpour has received such prestigious honors as a Lifetime Achievement Award and the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, a Guggenheim Award, two Rockefeller Foundation grants, Bearns Prize from Columbia University, and grants and residencies from the Barlow Foundation, MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Copland House, and the American Academy in Rome. He was one of the first composers to have been invited for a coveted Alberto Vilar Fellowship and Residency at the American Academy in Berlin, has enjoyed a McCormick Residency at Skidmore College as well as a specially created interdisciplinary residency at Northwestern University surrounding the Chicago premiere of Margaret Garner, and most recently recently a Boglaisco Foundation Fellowship.

Mr. Danielpour's work has been performed throughout the world, and his commissions read like a Who's Who of the world's leading musical institutions and artists. He has written for the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Stuttgart Radio Orchestra, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, American Composers Orchestra, and San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Pacific, National, and Baltimore Symphonies, among many others. His music has also been championed by Yo-Yo Ma, Jessye Norman, Sarah Chang, Dawn Upshaw, Emanuel Ax, Frederica von Stade, Thomas Hampson, Gary Graffman, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, the Guarneri, Emerson, Muir, and American String Quartets, and conductors Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Masur, Charles Dutoit, David Zinman, Zdenek Macal, Carl St. Clair, and Leonard Slatkin. Mr. Danielpour has also composed two major scores for the New York City and Pacific Northwest Ballets. Upcoming seasons include premieres of works for the Vienna Chamber Orchestra and Kravis Center for Philippe Entremont, the Pittsburgh Symphony and soprano Angela Brown on a text by Maya Angelou, the Seajong Soloists, Concertante, pianist Adam Golka, the Curtis Institute, the Pacific Symphony and Carl St. Clair, and Songs from an Old War for Thomas Hampson.

Mr. Danielpour is one of the most recorded composers of his generation, and became only the third composer --after Stravinsky and Copland-- to be signed to an exclusive recording contract by Sony Classical. Since then, Sony released several Danielpour recordings, including the Grammy Award-winning Cello Concerto recorded by Yo-Yo Ma and the Philadelphia Orchestra and conducted by David Zinman, and the Grammy-nominated Concerto for Orchestra (coupled with Anima Mundi), recorded by Zinman and the Pittsburgh Symphony. Recent recordings include An American Requiem for chorus and orchestra on Reference Recordings, and A Child's Reliquary with the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio and In The Arms Of The Beloved, written for and recorded by Jamie Laredo and Sharon Robinson, with the Iris Chamber Orchestra and Michael Stern conducting on Arabesque Recordings. Other recordings include Celestial Night, with the London Philharmonia conducted by Zdenek Macal, coupled with Towards the Splendid City and Urban Dances for orchestra; First Light, The Awakened Heart, and Symphony No. 3 on Delos; a chamber music disc on Koch, his Piano Sonata on New World; and Metamorphosis (Piano Concerto No. 1) with pianist Michael Boriskin and the Utah Symphony conducted by Joseph Silverstein.

Mr. Danielpour is an active educator and believes deeply in the nurturing of young musicians. Beyond serving on the faculties of both the Curtis Institute of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, he also spends a great deal of time giving master classes throughout the country, and coaching and mentoring young musicians. He was in residence at the Acadamie Musicale de Villcroze, and served as Master Artist for the Atlantic Center for the Arts' first International Residency Program in Italy, and co-director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra's Composition and Conducting Institute. He has also recently completed a three-year stint as Composer-in-Residence with the Pacific Symphony in southern California and will serve as BMI Composer in Residency at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University this year and Composer-in -Residence for the Pittsburgh Symphony (2009-10). In connection with other positions, he has coached not only composers but young performers in residencies at the Seattle Symphony, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Marlboro Music Festival, and Saratoga Chamber Music Festival.

His rigorous schedule also includes recent commissions from the Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Pacific, New Jersey, Singapore, and Atlanta Symphonies and Brooklyn Philharmonic, a collaborative piece with famed chef Daniel Boulud created for the ensemble Music from Copland House; and works for the Guarneri Quartet, WDR Sinfonie Orchester in Cologne, Yo-Yo Ma and the Orchestre National de Lyon and the Iris Chamber Orchestra.

Born in New York City on January 28, 1956, Mr. Danielpour studied at the New England Conservatory and The Juilliard School with Vincent Persichetti and Peter Mennin. He also trained as a pianist with Lorin Hollander, Veronica Jochum, and Gabriel Chodos. Richard Danielpour's music is published by Associated Music Publishers and, since2009LeanCatPublications.