“Firm, decisive,” “vital and engaging” and “with a droll sense of humor on the podium,” American conductor Daniel Black has begun to attract attention as a conductor who “makes music in a way that is meaningful to audiences in the 21st Century.”
Entering his fourth season as Resident Conductor of the Florida Orchestra, Daniel has conducted over one hundred performances with that orchestra, including Masterworks, Coffee Concerts, film concerts, and more. He is in demand as a guest conductor, having worked with the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and others in recent seasons. Among his highlights from the 2020-21 pandemic season with the Florida Orchestra, Daniel conducted the U.S. premiere of Eleanor Alberga’s dramatic work “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, and stepped in last-minute to conduct a program of Rachmaninov, Price, and Mendelssohn in place of Music Director Michael Francis. He also appeared on the new “Soundwaves” series, the Pops series, Coffee Concerts, and more.
Daniel made his podium debut with Michigan Opera Theatre in 2019: conducting Bernstein’s Candide to enthusiastic reviews. He is also on the IMG Artists list of approved conductors for film concerts with orchestra, having conducted very successful performances in 2018-20 of Return of the Jedi, Home Alone, Jane, and The Wizard of Oz with the Florida Orchestra and the Texarkana Symphony Orchestra.
Additional highlights of recent seasons include guest-conducting engagements with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra and the Dnipro State Opera and Ballet Company (in Dnipro, Ukraine), and engagements as assistant conductor for opera productions with Michigan Opera Theatre, Opera Theatre St. Louis, and the Florentine Opera Company. In 2018, Daniel also was one of eight recipients of a Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award- his third such honor.
Daniel’s previous guest-conducting engagements have included the St. Petersburg (Russia) State Academic Symphony Orchestra, the Dallas Basically Beethoven Festival, the Owensboro Symphony, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, the Wichita Falls Symphony, and the Rockford Symphony. As Music Director of the Oshkosh Symphony Orchestra, he created the first professional recording of John Harmon’s Crazy Horse symphony, and presented the Midwest Premiere of the work, a performance which was hailed as “one of the most momentous evenings in the [130-year] history of the Grand Opera House.”
Daniel won the 2017 Solti Foundation U.S. opera conducting fellowship, working with conductor Stephen Lord and Opera Theatre of St. Louis. He has also toured China as assistant conductor of the Chinese premiere of composer/conductor Bright Sheng’s opera Dream of the Red Chamber. During his tenure as Associate Conductor of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Daniel conducted over 150 performances. Daniel was the recipient of consecutive Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Awards in 2015 and 2016. He has been engaged as cover conductor by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
A former conducting fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Daniel has studied with Kurt Masur, Edo de Waart, Robert Spano, Hugh Wolff, Larry Rachleff, Marin Alsop, Daniel Lewis, David Effron, and Gunther Schuller.
Also an accomplished composer, Daniel was the composer-in-residence for the International Horn Society’s 2014 Southeast Horn Workshop, and was a finalist and diploma winner of the International Prokofiev Composition Contest in 2008.
Fluent in Russian, Daniel has studied conducting at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, Eastman School of Music, and Northwestern University, counting among his mentors Leonid Korchmar, Neil Varon and Victor Yampolsky. He has studied composition with Richard Danielpour.