page_title: Michael Daugherty
section_title: Education in the United States and Europe
hierarchical_section_title: Michael Daugherty / Life and career / Education in the United States and Europe
caption_attribution_description: English: From left to right: György Ligeti, his son Lukas Ligeti, his wife Vera Ligeti, Conlon Nancarrow, and Michael Daugherty at the ISCM World Music Days in Graz, Austria, 1982
context_page_description: Michael Kevin Daugherty is an American composer, pianist, and teacher. He is influenced by popular culture, Romanticism, and Postmodernism. Daugherty's notable works include his Superman comic book-inspired Metropolis Symphony for Orchestra, Dead Elvis for Solo Bassoon and Chamber Ensemble, Jackie O, Niagara Falls for Symphonic Band, UFO for Solo Percussion and Orchestra and for Symphonic Band, Bells for Stokowski from Philadelphia Stories for Orchestra and for Symphonic Band, Fire and Blood for Solo Violin and Orchestra inspired by Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, Time Machine for Three Conductors and Orchestra, Ghost Ranch for Orchestra, Deus ex Machina for Piano and Orchestra, Labyrinth of Love for Soprano and Chamber Winds, American Gothic for Orchestra, and Tales of Hemingway for Cello and Orchestra. Daugherty has been described by The Times as "a master icon maker" with a "maverick imagination, fearless structural sense and meticulous ear."
  Currently, Daugherty is Professor of Composition at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
context_section_description: Daugherty studied music composition and jazz at the University of North Texas College of Music from 1972–76.  His teachers of composition included Martin Mailman and James Sellars.  Daugherty also played jazz piano in the Two O'Clock Lab Band.  It was after hearing the Dallas Symphony Orchestra perform the Piano Concerto by Samuel Barber that Daugherty decided to devote his full energies into composing music for the concert stage.  In 1974, conductor Anshel Brusilow programmed a new work with the University of North Texas Symphony Orchestra, Daugherty was 20 years of age.  After his premiere of Movements for Orchestra, the composition faculty awarded Daugherty a fellowship, which allowed him to continue his musical studies at the university.  Daugherty received a Bachelor of Music degree in Composition from North Texas State University in 1976.
  That same year, Daugherty moved to New York City to experience the exploding new music scene.  While there, he studied serialism with Charles Wuorinen at the Manhattan School of Music for two years, and received a Master of Music in Composition degree in 1978.  To earn money for his studies, Daugherty was employed as an usher at Carnegie Hall and a rehearsal pianist for dance classes directed by the New York City Ballet dancer Jacques d'Amboise.
  Daugherty frequently attended "uptown" and "downtown" new music concerts in New York City; this is where he became acquainted with composers such as Milton Babbitt, Morton Feldman, and Pierre Boulez.  In 1978, Boulez, then the Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, invited Daugherty to apply to his recently opened computer music institute in Paris: IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique).  A Fulbright Fellowship enabled Daugherty to move to Paris to study computer music at IRCAM from 1979–80.  During his time at IRCAM, he met many composers such as Luciano Berio, Gérard Grisey, Tod Machover, and Frank Zappa.  In Paris, Daugherty had the opportunity to hear contemporary music by the leading European composers of the time performed by the Ensemble l'Itinéraire and  Boulez's Ensemble InterContemporain.  He also attended analysis classes given by Betsy Jolas at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris.
  In the fall of 1980, Daugherty returned to America to pursue doctoral studies in composition at the Yale School of Music.  During that time, Jacob Druckman (who was one of America's most influential composers) was chair of the composition department at Yale and composer in residence with the New York Philharmonic.  Daugherty studied with Druckman and other Pulitzer Prize winning composers at Yale, including Bernard Rands and Roger Reynolds.  He also studied improvisational notation systems and open form with experimental music composer Earle Brown.  Daugherty's composition class at Yale included student composers who would later become unique and important voices in contemporary music: Bang on a Can composers Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe; along with Robert Beaser, Aaron Jay Kernis, Scott Lindroth, and Betty Olivero.
  At Yale, Daugherty wrote his dissertation on the relationship between the music of Charles Ives and Gustav Mahler and the writings of Goethe and Ralph Waldo Emerson.  He worked closely on this dissertation with John Kirkpatrick, who was the curator of the Ives Collection at Yale and gave the 1938 premiere of Ives’ Piano Sonata No. 2: Concord Sonata.  Daugherty also continued his interest in jazz where he worked with Willie Ruff and directed the Yale Jazz Ensemble.  It was Ruff who introduced Daugherty to jazz arranger Gil Evans, who, at that time, was looking for an assistant.  For the next several years, Daugherty traveled by train from New Haven to Evans' private studio in Manhattan.  Daugherty helped Evans organize his music manuscripts and complete projects.  The most notable project was the reconstruction of the lost arrangements of Porgy and Bess, which was originally used for the 1958 recording with Miles Davis.
  During the summer of 1981, Daugherty studied compositi
caption: From left to right: György Ligeti, Lukas Ligeti, Vera Ligeti, Conlon Nancarrow, and Michael Daugherty at the ISCM World Music Days in Graz, Austria, 1982
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