2.23 - Daniel Kidane

Daniel Kidane‘s music has been performed extensively across the UK and abroad as well as being broadcast on BBC Radio 3, described by the Financial Times as ‘quietly impressive’ and by The Times as ‘tautly constructed’ and ’vibrantly imagined’.

Daniel was awarded a Royal Philharmonic Society Prize in 2013 and in 2016 received a prestigious Paul Hamlyn Award for Artists. He received an honorary doctorate from Coventry University in 2022 and is currently a Visiting Tutor in Composition at the Royal Northern College of Music and Cambridge University. 

Daniel began his musical education at the age of eight when he started playing the violin. He first received composition lessons at the Royal College of Music Junior Department and then went on to study privately in St Petersburg, receiving lessons in composition from Sergey Slonimsky. He completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the RNCM under the tutelage of Gary Carpenter and David Horne. 

His orchestral works include Woke, which was premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and chief conductor Sakari Oramo at the Last Night of the Proms in September 2019; Zulu premiered by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Breakbeat written for the CBSO Youth Orchestra, and inspired by Grime music; and Sirens, written for the BBC Philharmonic orchestra, motivated by the eclectic musical nightlife in Manchester.

Other commissions include Tourbillon for Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord) and Michala Petri (recorder) premiered at WIgmore Hall and released on CD; Jungle, a piano duo written for the Cheltenham Festival which draws inspiration from Jungle music and a new type of vernacular; Songs of Illumination, a song cycle commissioned by Leeds Lieder and setting setting the poetry of William Blake; and a setting of the words of Martin Luther King for orchestra and chorus entitled Dream Song premiered by baritone Roderick Williams and the Chineke! Orchestra which was played at the reopening of the Queen Elizabeth Hall in 2018 (a US premiere of the work is planned by the Seattle Symphony, postponed from Spring 2020).

As a member of the London Symphony Orchestra's Jerwood and Panufnik Composers Schemes he has written several works for members of the LSO, which have focused on multiculturalism. 

Works premiered during the Covid-19 lockdowns include The Song Thrush and the Mountain Ash for Huddersfield Choral Society with text by Poet Laureate Simon Armitage; Dappled Light for violinists Maxine Kwok and Julian Gil Rodriguez for the London Symphony Orchestra's Summer Shorts series; Christus factus est for Merton College Choir recorded for Delphian; and Be Still for the Manchester Camerata, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and received further international premieres by the San Francisco Symphony, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris. His most recent work Revel, inspired by Manchester Carnival, was commissioned by the BBC Proms for the Kanneh-Mason family, and premiered in August 2021.

Recent highlights include the world premiere of Sun Poem, premiered by the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle at the Edinburgh International Festival in August 2022, subsequently performered at Musikfest Berlin, Lucerne Festival, Grafenegg Festival and the Sydney Opera House, receiving 5-star reviews. The piece was co-commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony, with the US premiere conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen in October 2022 at Mondavi Center for Performing Arts and Davies Symphony Hall.