Daron Hagen

Hagen’s debut in 1983 as the youngest composer ever premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra launched an international polymathic creative life as a celebrated composer, pianist, conductor, college professor, concert impresario, festival artistic director, foundation president, stage director and auteur operafilm-maker — all recounted in vivid detail in the 2019 “ruthlessly honest and beautifully written” memoir, Duet with the Past.

Hagen will be film-editing I Hear America Singing, the final installment in The Bardo Trilogy, a sequence of composer conceived, written, directed, and edited opera-films that include Orson Rehearsed (2018) and 9/10: Love Before the Fall (2023) devoted to the exploration of the liminal zone between life and art, and life and what comes after. He will also be working on a collection of first-person essays about the nascent opera-film genre, which will also include his libretti and screenplays.