About Daniel Paul Horn

A member of Wheaton’s piano faculty since 1984, Daniel Paul Horn explores a wide range of music as a solo pianist, collaborative artist, and teacher, his passion for all of this informed by a thoughtful Christian worldview.

Daniel Paul Horn, D.M.A.

Professor of Piano and Chair of Keyboard Studies.

Office phone:  630.752.5826;  office fax:  630.752.5341.

Email:  <daniel.horn@wheaton.edu>.

Biography

Born Detroit, Michigan.  Attended the Peabody Conservatory;  BM, MM and DMA in Piano Performance, the Juilliard School.  Studies with Walter Hautzig, Martin Canin (piano), Felix Galimir (chamber music), Joseph Bloch (piano literature), Vincent Persichetti (doctoral advisor).  Doctoral document:  Change and Continuity in the Music of George Rochberg.  Further studies with Menahem Pressler;  coaching with Ann Schein, Jerome Lowenthal, Joseph Bloch, Roy Howat;  master-classes with Gaby Casadesus and Guido Agosti.  Early studies with Lawrence LaGore, Nelita True.

At Wheaton since 1984.  Summer faculties at Sewanee, Adamant, Blue Mountain, MasterWorks (current).  Master-classes include Albion College, Ball State University, Calvin College, College of the Ozarks, Elmhurst College, Florida State University, Indiana University-Bloomington, Kent State University, Lee College, Louisiana State University, North Dakota State University, Northwestern College, Schoolcraft College, Southern Illinois-Carbondale, Southern Utah State College, Taylor University, University of Chicago, University of Colorado-Boulder, University of Wisconsin-Platteville, Washington University (St. Louis);  Emilio del Rosario Young Artists Competition, MacPhail Center for Music (Minneapolis).

Currently teaching applied piano, piano literature, chamber music.

Musical interests:  Endless.  In solo repertoire, seriously passionate about Schumann;  ongoing involvement with Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, French music, and twentieth-/twenty-first-century repertoires.  Omnivorous tastes in chamber music.  Performing and recording experience on Viennese fortepianos;  performance experience as harpsichordist (continuo for Handel's Messiah and Haydn's Creation conducted by John Nelson).       

Performance

Solo performances throughout North America.  Frequent performances on Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chamber Music Series;  appearances on Northwestern University Winter Chamber Music Series, Steans Institute at Ravinia, solo and ensemble broadcasts on WFMT-FM.  Collaborations with violinists Cornelia Heard, John Dalley, Lee Joiner, Gert Kumi, Jessica Mathaes, David Perry, Harvey Thurmer, Yuan-Qing Yu;  violists Rose Armbrust and Max Raimi;  cellists Leonardo Altino, Stephen Balderston, Donald Moline, Jonathan Pegis, Walter Preucil, John Sharp, David Ying;  flutists Jennie Oh Brown, Mathieu Dufour;  clarinetist Trevor OI’Riordan;  sopranos Michelle Areyzaga, Carolyn Hart, Maria Lagios, Sylvia McNair, Patrice Michaels;  mezzo Denise Gamez;  tenor Timothy Jenkins;  basses Jonathan Beyer, Kenneth Cox and Stephen Morscheck;  Ying String Quartet;  MasterWorks Ensemble (in Bermuda and at 2010 Beijing Modern Music Festival);  Midsummer’s Music Festival (Door County, 2017);  Rembrandt Chamber Players, members of New York Philharmonic.  Solo orchestral performances with Detroit Symphony Youth Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, World Youth SO at Interlochen (as teenager);  Fox River Valley SO (Illinois);  Grosse Pointe SO (Michigan);  New Philharmonic of Glen Ellyn (Illinois);  Sarajevo Philharmonic (Bosnia and Herzegovina);  Wheaton College SO;  Wheaton College Wind Ensemble.

Premieres of works by George Arasimowicz, Jacob Bancks (Lost at Sea, winner of 2006 BMI Student Composers Award;  Antiphonale:  The Feast of Saint Michael the Archangel, commissioned by Daniel Paul Horn), Delvyn Case, Richard Danielpour (newly commissioned work for 2020-2021 season), David M. Gordon, Patrick Kavanaugh, Daniel Kellogg, Tony Payne, Max Raimi;  performances prepared in consultation with William Bolcom, Lowell Liebermann, Jan Radzynski, George Rochberg, Louise Talma, George Walker, Xiaogang Ye.

Recordings

“Sehnsucht:  Music of Robert Schumann.”  Privately-produced disc, funding made possible by a Wheaton College Academic Achievement grant, 2010.  Available through CD Baby, iTunes, and other outlets.

“The Bliss of Solitude:  Canadian Art Songs.”  Compact disc with Carolyn Hart, soprano, 2009.  Distributed by the Canadian Music Centre, also available with scores from Alberta Keys Publishing. 

“Singer on a Journey:  Sacred Cycles of Brahms, Beethoven, Floyd, Vaughan Williams.”  Compact disc with Gerard Sundberg, baritone.  College Avenue Arts, 2000. 

"Napoleon's Cellist:  Music of Jean-Louis Duport."  With Donald Moline, cello. Centaur Records compact disc (CRC 2414), 1999.

"Wanderings:  Fantasies of Schubert and Mendelssohn."  Titanic Records compact disc (Ti-236), 1998.  Recorded on a Graf fortepiano, ca. 1829.

Articles

“Whatever we sow, our students will reap”  (article on early level piano technique).  Keyboard Companion, vol. 14, no. 4 (Winter 2003).

"Fortepiano/Pianoforte/Piano:  A Brief Guide to Terminology for the Perplexed."  Early Music Colorado Quarterly, vol. VI, No. 3 (Winter 1998), pp. 5-8.

"The Music of Simplicity" (Review of recordings of early American hymnody by Joel Cohen and the Boston Camarata).  Christianity and the Arts, vol. 3, no. 4 (November-January, 1996-7), pp. 17ff.

"Music to Herald the Passion" (Review of Recordings of music by Heinrich Schütz, Franz Joseph Haydn, John Stainer, and Arvo Pärt).  Christianity and the Arts,  February 1996 (vol. 3, No. 1), pp. 15ff.

"Between Political Struggle and Heavenly Contemplation" (Review of Recordings of music by Henryk Górecki and James MacMillan).  Christianity and the Arts, November 1995, pp. 17-20.

"Carnival Music: An Introduction to the Piano Music of George Rochberg."  Clavier, vol. 27, no. 9 (Nov., 1988), 17-21.  (Listed in Hinson, Guide to the Pianist’s Repertoire, Third Edition, 2001.)

Occasional program notes for concerts at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Kaufman Concert Hall (92nd Street Y), and the Artist Series at Wheaton College.

Prizes, Awards, and Honors

  • Recipient, Senior Scholarship Achievement Award, Wheaton College, 2009.
  • Biography included in Who’s Who in America, 57th Edition, November 2002.
  • Mohonk Mountain Music Fund Performing Artist.
  • Semi-finalist, Young Concert Artists auditions;  semi-finalist, Concert Artists Guild auditions.
  • Carl M. Roeder Memorial Prize, Juilliard School.
  • Second prize, Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Competition.
  • First Prize, Baltimore Jewish Community Center Competition

Current Affiliations

  • Treasurer, American Liszt Society;  co-founder of the ALS Chicago/ Midwest Chapter.
  • Member, Christian Performing Artists Fellowship.
  • Member and NCTM, Music Teachers National Association:  Have served as state adjudicator (Wisconsin, 1992;  Michigan, 1999);  principal clinician for Michigan Music Teachers Association state conference, 2001:  three lectures on Schumann and his world.
  • Member, Illinois State Music Teachers Association:  Have served as lecturer and adjudicator at local, regional and state levels.  Local chair for 2008 ISMTA State Conference at Wheaton College.