Daniel Ernest Forrest Jr. (born January 7, 1978) is an American

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

, pianist, educator, and music editor.

Biography

Dan Forrest was born in

Breesport, New York Breesport is a hamlet and census-designated place in the town of Horseheads in Chemung County, New York, United States. The population was 626 at the 2010 census. Geography Breesport is located on the eastern side of the town of Horseheads ...

, and began piano lessons with his elementary school music teacher at age 8. In high school Forrest won numerous piano awards, accompanied honors choirs, and performed the Grieg Piano Concerto with the Elmira Symphony. He majored in piano at

Bob Jones University Bob Jones University (BJU) is a private university in Greenville, South Carolina, United States. It is known for its Conservatism in the United States, conservative and Evangelicalism in the United States, evangelical cultural and religious posit ...

, earning a B.Mus. and an M.Mus. in Piano Performance, studying advanced theory and composition with Joan Pinkston and

Dwight Gustafson Dwight Leonard Gustafson (April 20, 1930 – January 28, 2014) was an American composer, conductor, and dean of the School of Fine Arts at Bob Jones University. Biography Gustafson was born in Seattle, Washington to Leonard Gustafson, a me ...

. After teaching piano in South Carolina for three years, he moved to Kansas, where he earned a

D.M.A. The doctor of musical arts (DMA) is a doctoral academic degree in music. The DMA combines advanced studies in an applied area of specialization (usually music performance, music composition, or conducting) with graduate-level academic study in su ...

in composition from the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital ...

, studying with wind band composer James Barnes. Forrest also studied with

Alice Parker Alice Stuart Parker Pyle (December 16, 1925 – December 24, 2023), known professionally as Alice Parker, was an American composer, arranger, conductor and teacher.Beckenhorst Press
(church music) an
Hinshaw Music
(concert music), but also Choristers Guild. In 2018, he began self-publishing his own concert musi
The Music of Dan Forrest
which is distributed by Beckenhorst Press. His published works have sold millions of copies worldwide. Forrest's choral works have received the

ASCAP The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadc ...

Morton Gould Young Composer's Award, the ACDA Raymond Brock Award, a Meet The Composer grant, the University of Kansas Cius Award, the ALCM Raabe Prize,. Forrest's music has been performed in leading venues around the world including

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhattan), 57t ...

, the

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 ...

, NPR's ''

Performance Today ''Performance Today'' is a classical music radio program, first aired in 1987 and hosted since 2000 by Fred Child. It is the most listened-to daily classical music radio program in the United States, with 1.2 million listeners on 237 stations. ...

,'' and on the

BBC Proms The BBC Proms is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in central London. Robert Newman founded The Proms in 1895. Since 1927, the ...

. A review in ''

The Salt Lake Tribune ''The Salt Lake Tribune'' is a newspaper published in the city of Salt Lake City, Utah. The ''Tribune'' is owned by The Salt Lake Tribune, Inc., a non-profit corporation. The newspaper's motto is "Utah's Independent Voice Since 1871." History ...

'' referred to Forrest's "superb choral writing" and gave as an example his arrangement of "

The First Noel "The First Nowell" (or Nowel), modernised as "The First Noel" (or Noël), is a traditional English Christmas carol with Cornish origins most likely from the early modern period, although possibly earlier.. It is listed as number 682 in the Ro ...

," which it said was "full of spine-tingling moments." Forrest is one of a small number of composers whose works have been included in both ''Teaching Music Through Performance in Choir'' and ''Teaching Music Through Performance In Band''. Perhaps Forrest's best known work is '' Requiem for the Living'' (2013), having received several hundred performances worldwide. His other major works, ''Jubilate Deo'' (2016) and ''LUX: The Dawn From On High'' (2018) have also been widely performed. Forrest taught music theory and composition at The University of Kansas as a graduate assistant from 2004 to 2007, and at Bob Jones University from 2007 to 2012, where he served as chairman of the department of music theory and composition. He now serves as co-editor at Beckenhorst Press, regularly teaches composition lessons and masterclasses, and speaks about composing, music-making, aesthetics, music publishing, and the music business in guest-artist residencies with universities and choirs in the United States and abroad. Forrest is currently an adjunct professor of music composition at

Furman University Furman University is a private university in Greenville, South Carolina, United States. Founded in 1826 and named after Baptist pastor Richard Furman, the Liberal arts college, liberal arts university is the oldest private institution of higher l ...

, and he also serves as Artist-in-Residence at Mitchell Road Presbyterian Church ( PCA), Greenville, SC.

Style

Forrest is equally at home in both concert music and church music, and he composes for ensembles across the spectrum of choral music. His background in academia and experience with professional choirs and orchestras allows him to write complex music that requires sophisticated performers, yet he also writes music accessible for amateur choirs. He is known for his skill in writing melodic lines for all voices and instruments, which he attributes to studying with Alice Parker and James Barnes. His choral works are known for their sensitivity to the nuances, speech rhythms, and deeper meanings of their texts. Additionally, his skill as a pianist and his training and experience in instrumentation/orchestration result in accompaniments that are known for their idiomatic writing and effective, impactful, and efficient scoring.

Awards

*2004

John Ness Beck John Ness Beck (November 11, 1930 – June 25, 1987) was an American composer and arranger of choral music, best known for his settings of traditional Sacred music. His works are frequently performed by high school, college, church, community, a ...

Foundation, first place (with noted composer

John Rutter Sir John Milford Rutter (born 24 September 1945) is an English composer, conductor, editor, arranger, and record producer, mainly of choral music. Biography Born on 24 September 1945 in London, the son of an industrial chemist and his wife, R ...

taking second place). His winning composition was a choral setting of "

The King of Love My Shepherd Is The King of Love My Shepherd Is is an 1868 hymn with lyrics written by Henry Williams Baker, based on the Welsh version of Psalm 23 made by Edmund Prys. It is most often sung to one of four different melodies: # "Dominus Regit Me", composed by ...

."Vanguard website
. *2005

American Choral Directors Association The American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), headquartered in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is a non-profit organization with the stated purpose of promoting the field of choral music A choir ( ), also known as a chorale or chorus (from Lat ...

Raymond Brock Composition Competition. His winning piece, "Selah," was premiered at the ACDA convention in 2006. *2006

Morton Gould Morton Gould (December 10, 1913February 21, 1996) was an American composer, conductor, arranger, and pianist. Biography Morton Gould was born in Richmond Hill, New York, United States. He was of Austrian-Jewish heritage. He was recognized ear ...

Young Composers Award for selected movements from ''Words From Paradise'', an extended work for

a cappella Music performed a cappella ( , , ; ), less commonly spelled acapella in English, is music performed by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Rena ...

choir. He was presented his award at the

. *2009 John Ness Beck Foundation, first place. *2009 Raabe Prize, endowed for the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians by William and

Nancy Raabe Nancy Elizabeth Miller Raabe (born 1954) is a retired American clergy member, author, and composer. She served congregations in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, and was the pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Hatfield, Pennsylvania. Early life ...

, for his ''In Paradisum'' *2009

Frank Ticheli Frank Ticheli ( ; born January 21, 1958) is an American composer of orchestral, choral, chamber, and concert band works. He lives in Los Angeles, California, where he is a Professor Emeritus of Composition at the University of Southern Califo ...

International Wind Band Composition Contest, Finalist. *Numerous other awards from composition contests, musical societies (Forrest was inducted into Delta Omicron musical society in 2015), honorary memberships, etc.

Notable performances

*On February 11, 2007, Forrest's music was performed in Carnegie Hall for the first time, with the world premiere of "Arise, Shine!" His works are now performed there on a regular basis. *On Christmas Day 2008,

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

featured Forrest's "Carol of Joy" on ''

''. *On March 24, 2013 Forrest's "Requiem for the Living" was premiered as a commissioned work by The Hickory Choral Society, in honor of the organization's 35th anniversary. *In spring 2016, Forrest's Jubilate Deo was premiered as a commissioned work by the Indianapolis Children's Choirs, in honor of founder

Henry Leck Henry Leck (born c. 1946) is the founder and previous Artistic Director of thIndianapolis Children's Choirand thIndianapolis Youth Chorale He is a choral clinician and a specialist on boys' changing voices. In 1986, Leck formed the Indianapolis Ch ...

's retirement. *In 2016, Forrest was commissioned by Duke University Chapel to arrange "The Church's One Foundation" for the re-opening of the Chapel after rehabilitation of its limestone ceiling and replacement of its roof. *In fall 2017, Forrest's LUX: The Dawn From On High was premiered as a commissioned work by th
Greenville Chorale
and Symphony, conducted by Bingham Vick, Jr. *In September 2019, Forrest's setting of "And Can It Be?" was performed on the last night of the 2019 BBC Proms series, in the Northern Ireland Proms in the Park concert. *In October 2019, Bel Canto Company, Greensboro, NC, premiered Forrest's ''the breath of life''. *Other commissioned premieres include ''Himenami'' (in Izumi Hall, Osaka, Japan) and ''Non Nobis Domine'' (in Salzburg Cathedral, Austria, July 2018).

Works

* '' Requiem for the Living'' (2013) * Jubilate Deo (2016) * The Dawn from on High (2018) * the breath of life (premiered 2019)

Personal life

Forrest is married and has three children. He is a Christian and views his musical work as an outgrowth of his faith.

References

External links

Official websiteBeckenhorst Press
(distributor of Forrest's self-published concert music and publisher of his church music) {{DEFAULTSORT:Forrest, Dan 1978 births Living people American male classical composers 20th-century American classical composers University of Kansas alumni People from Elmira, New York Musicians from Greenville, South Carolina American male pianists 21st-century American pianists 20th-century American male musicians 21st-century American male musicians