Richard Danielpour is a Grammy Award-winning composer recognized as one of the most gifted and influential American composers of his generation. With a dynamic career spanning over three decades, his works have been commissioned and performed by many of the world’s leading artists and institutions, and he has shaped generations of young composers as a mentor and educator.
Danielpour’s music has been commissioned by iconic performers such as Yo-Yo Ma, Jessye Norman, Susan Graham, Dawn Upshaw, Emanuel Ax, Gil Shaham, Thomas Hampson, and Anthony McGill. Renowned ensembles and organizations including the Guarneri and Emerson String Quartets, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Orchestre National de France, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center have premiered his works. He has also composed for the New York City, Pacific Northwest, and Nashville Ballets.
In collaboration with Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, Danielpour wrote his first opera, Margaret Garner, which premiered in 2005 and was later staged by New York City Opera. His accolades include a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, two Rockefeller Fellowships, a Guggenheim Award, the Bearns Prize from Columbia University, and The Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin.
Danielpour taught composition at the Manhattan School of Music from 1993 to 2017. He has been on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music since 1997 and joined UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music as Professor of Music in 2017.
In 2021, Danielpour became the first American composer in nearly 40 years to be commissioned by a major Italian orchestra, Orchestra Della Toscana, for the Dante anniversary. That year also saw the premiere of Four Angels, written for Anthony McGill and the Catalyst Quartet, commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a tribute to Black Lives Matter. In the same year, he received the Covel Chair from UCLA and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Cremona Music Festival to support the creation of his new opera, The Grand Hotel Tartarus.
Major premieres in 2023–2024 included The Unhealed Wound, a cantata with poetry by Rita Dove, commissioned by Skidmore College; Breaking the Veil, honoring the women of Iran; and Triptych, a symphony based on Dante’s Divine Comedy, both premiered by ROCO Chamber Orchestra in Houston. In February 2024, the Golden Bridge Chorus premiered Agnus Dei in Los Angeles. His opera The Grand Hotel Tartarus premiered at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse in May 2024.
One of the most recorded composers of his time, Danielpour’s works appear on Naxos of America and Sony Classical. His music is published by Lean Kat Music and Associated Music Publishers.