Dan Joseph is a free-lance composer, curator and writer based in New
York City. He began his career as a drummer in the vibrant punk scene of his native
Washington, DC. During the late 1980s, he was active in the experimental tape music
underground, producing ambient-industrial works for independent labels in the U.S.
and abroad. He spent the ‘90s in California where he studied at CalArts and Mills
College. His principal teachers include Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Curran and Mel
Powell. Equally influential were his studies with Terry Riley during several
workshops in California and Colorado. A New York resident since 2001, Dan’s work has
been presented at Merkin Concert Hall (NYC), Diapason Gallery for Sound (NYC),
Roulette (NYC), Issue Project Room (NYC) The Kitchen (NYC) Yerba Buena Center for
the Arts (CA), Human Resources (CA), Harrison House (CA) and other venues. He has
received commissions from several ensembles and performers, including Gamelan Son of
Lion, the sfSoundGroup, baritone Thomas Buckner, and clarinetist Matt Ingalls. Dan
has held residencies at Headlands Center for the Arts, the Lower Manhattan Cultural
Council and Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center. As an artist who embraces the
musical multiplicity of our time, Dan works simultaneously in a variety of media and
contexts, including instrumental chamber music, free improvisation, and various
forms of electronica and sound art. Since the late 1990s, the hammer dulcimer has
been the primary vehicle for his music. As a performer he is active with his own
chamber ensemble, The Dan Joseph Ensemble, as well as in various improvisational
collaborations and as an occasional soloist. He has collaborated with a variety of
creative artists including Miya Masaoka, Pamela Z, Loren Dempster, JD Parran, India
Cooke, Andrea Williams, William Winant and Miguel Frasconi and John Ingle. As
curator and presenter, he has organized over 100 concerts as an independent producer
and as a member of organizations such as Harvestworks, Mutable Music (producers of
the acclaimed Interpretations series) and the San Francisco Electronic Music
Festival. He currently produces the monthly music and sound series Musical Ecologies
at The Old Stone House in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and is a co-producer of the Music
for Contemplation series in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. His writings on various music
related topics have appeared in Musicworks Magazine (Toronto), The Brooklyn Rail,
NewMusicBox.org and other outlets.
