Biography

Press kit available here.

Daniel Kallman’s compositions for orchestra, winds, and choir are widely published and have been performed across North America, Europe and East Asia. His steady stream of commissions also includes music for worship, theater, and the young musician. Kallman has composed for the National Symphony Orchestra, the Air Force Academy Band, the National Lutheran Choir, the Minnesota Orchestra, A Prairie Home Companion, and a wide variety of vocal and instrumental ensembles. He has received support from the American Composers Forum, Meet the Composer, and the McKnight and Jerome Foundations.

The Jig is Up, Kallman’s most popular work for winds, has received hundreds of performances by college, high school, professional and community bands. Other works for band include The Communion of the Hive: A Sanctity Under Shadow; There was a composer of genius . . (A Whimsical Celebration of Four American Composers), co-commissioned by 26 concert bands throughout the country; and Streets of Honor, commissioned by the 34th Infantry Division Band of the Minnesota National Guard and a 19-member consortium of Minnesota college, high school and community bands.

The orchestral works of Daniel Kallman have been performed by both amateur and professional ensembles across the country. His orchestral work Gaia: Desecration, Lamentation and Awakening was written as a call to confident, compassionate action in response to the enormous challenges of climate change. Kallman’s holiday works have been programmed by the Milwaukee Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra under the baton of Doc Severinsen. Messiah, Prince of Peace, a meditation for orchestra, has been used repeatedly to open the nationally broadcast St. Olaf Christmas Festival.

Kallman has established a reputation as a composer for the young musician and youth audiences. Pura Vida!, Kallman’s multi-movement work written for the Minnesota Orchestra and dancers, introduces Latino styles of music to the young listener. Other compositions have been completed for dozens of ensembles, including the Hong Kong Children’s Choir, the Columbus Children’s Choir, the Northeast Pennsylvania Choral Society, the Lake Superior Youth Chorus, and several consortium-supported projects. His works for young audiences with narration include the wind octet Sea Creatures; Yankee Doodling: A Young Person’s Guide to the Concert Band, recorded by the Air Force Academy Band; and A Young Person’s Guide to the Choir. Kallman is often invited to conduct his own compositions and to work with ensembles in residencies. Choirs in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, and New Jersey have presented concerts dedicated solely to performing Kallman’s works.

As a composer of music for worship, Kallman is best known for his liturgical setting “Light of Christ,” commissioned for the Lutheran hymnal With One Voice and included in the Presbyterian hymnal Holy Is the Lord. Kallman’s church choir anthems, hymn settings and other liturgical service music are sung throughout the country.

Kallman has served as resident composer for the Great River Shakespeare Festival and has composed music for The Way Home, a retelling of the parable of the prodigal son in a full-length stage play by Herbert Brokering. His setting of Brokering’s final poem “Behold the All” was commissioned and recently recorded by the National Lutheran Choir.

Daniel Kallman was born in 1956. He received his musical training at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa and at the University of Minnesota where he studied composition under Dominick Argento and Paul Fetler. The principal publishers of Kallman’s music are Shawnee Press and Hal Leonard (children’s choir), MorningStar Music (church choir), Boosey and Hawkes (winds and choral), Lauren Keiser Music (orchestral), and Kallman’s own publishing company, Kallman Creates Publications. All of Kallman’s works are catalogued on his website at www.kallmancreates.com.  (January 30, 2018)

Above photo by Tom Roster